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BKHH^ 


AN  ATTIC  DREAMER 


BY  MICHAEL  MONAHAN 

AN  ATTIC  DREAMER 

AT  THE  SIGN  OF  THE  VAN 

ADVENTURES  IN  LIFE  AND  LETTERS 

NEW  ADVENTURES 

HEINRICH  HEINE 

NOVA  HIBERNIA 


AN  ATTIC 
DREAMER 


BY 

MICHAEL  MONAHAN 


NEW  YORK 

MITCHELL  KENNERLEY 
MCMXXII 


COPYRIGHT,  1922  BY 
MITCHELL  KENNERLEY 


PRINTED  IN  THE  UNITED  STATES 


TO 

PETER 

WITH  MEMORIES  OF  THE  GREAT  AGE 

THAT  CAME  LAUGHING  ARM-IN-ARM 

WITH  MR.  DOOLET 


M184877 


THE  AUTHOR'S  APOLOGY 

THIS  book  is,  in  great  part,  the  literary 
residuum  of  a  small  literary  periodi 
cal,  The  Papyrus,  personally  conducted 
by  the  Author — or  more  truly,  conducting  and 
possessing  the  Author — from  1903  to  1912. 

The  same  was  not  a  strictly  continuous  per 
formance.  There  were  several  suspensions  and 
intermissions  of  varying  length,  which  endear 
the  broken  sets  of  The  Papyrus  to  the  collector 
of  literary  curios. 

I  published  the  magazine  at  my  own  cost, 
which  made  it  doubly  dear  to  me,  and  I  paid 
full  price  every  way  for  my  free  lance  and  saucy 
independence.  But  it  was  an  inspiration  of 
youth  and  the  courage  that  goes  therewith,  and 
I  am  glad  now  that  I  acted  upon  it.  It  is  true 
there  were  times  when  I  wanted  to  quit  it  once 
and  forever,  but  no  sooner  had  I  sent  out  the 
funeral  notices,  etc.,  than  I  was  seized  with  a 
frantic  desire  to  dig  it  up  again.  And  so  it 
went  on  and  on.  For  I  could  not  otherwise 
have  got  the  thing  out  of  me  that  cried  for  ex- 


viii       THE  AUTHOR'S  APOLOGY 

pression,  and  if  I  had  there  would  have  been 
obstacles  to  the  immediate  publishing  thereof 
which  need  not  be  dwelt  upon.  I  therefore  de 
termined,  like  the  excellent  Mr.  Howells,  to  be 
an  editor  myself: — a  position  which  is  of  ad 
vantage  to  the  most  gifted,  in  the  way  of  accost 
ing  the  fickle  Goddess  Fame,  if  not  actually  se 
curing  her  favors. 

I  venture  to  say  that  no  literary  periodical 
ever  lived  so  long  that  had  such  a  continuously 
hard  time  of  it  (being  altogether  without  capi 
tal),  or  was  so  chronically  insolvent,  or,  on 
the  other  hand,  that  so  entirely  paid  for  itself, 
in  the  view  of  its  Conductor — I  should  rather 
say,  its  humble  slave  and  worm  of  the  dust! 
The  mere  writing  of  it,  as  I  remember,  the 
printing  and  the  sending  forth  of  it  each  month 
(or  sometimes  skip  one)  healed  the  suicidal 
recurring  hunt  for  the  printer's  money. 

I  know  one  thing:  print  will  never  again  look 
so  good  to  me  as  it  did  when  I  mailed  the  early 
numbers  of  The  Papyrus  to  a  remarkably  select 
but  rather  diminutive  list  of  readers,  and  then 
waited  nervously  for  the  world's  intellectual  re 
action.  I  achieved  the  miracle  of  editing  and 
publishing  and  financing  it  for  the  space  of 
nine  years  (including  suspensions  and  lay-offs 


THE  AUTHOR'S  APOLOGY         ix 

for  one  reason  or  another),  but  I  am  not  rich 
enough  to  own  a  Complete  Set  of  it,  as  pub 
lished: — some  things  must  be  left  to  the  purse- 
proud  Collector! 

It  will  be  seen  from  the  foregoing  that  my 
book  has  complied  with  the  Horatian  condi 
tion — Nonum  prematur  in  annum — since  it  has 
been  pressed  (if  not  actually  suppressed)  more 
years  than  nine.  I  dare  say  that,  like  many  a 
greater  work,  it  is  none  the  worse  for  having  so 
long  waited  its  turn.  Time  is  the  best  editor 
that  the  world  has  yet  discovered.  I  may  add 
that  nothing  is  here  reprinted  from  The  Papy 
rus  save  what  has  stood  the  test  of  enduring 
affection  and  interest  on  the  part  of  many 
readers. 

I  shall  not  deprive  the  acute  reader  of  the 
legitimate  pleasure  of  running  down  divers  in 
consistencies  throughout  the  following  pages. 
It  is  allowed  that  where  inconsistency  does  not 
prove  a  weakness  of  the  logical  faculty,  it  may 
be  a  sign  of  mental  or  spiritual  growth.  I  will 
leave  it  to  the  aforesaid  acute  reader  to  decide 
the  point  for  or  against  me,  merely  bespeaking 
a  charity  equal  to  his  intelligence.  In  spite  of 
a  few  papers  which  have  stood  long  in  type,  he 


x          THE  AUTHOR'S  APOLOGY 

will  readily  divine  that  I  care  very  little  for 
polemics,  but  very  much  for  Liberty  and  Litera 
ture.  My  point  of  sympathy  with  so  bold  an 
iconoclast  as  Ingersoll,  waiving  his  eloquence 
and  literary  appeal,  was  and  is  in  his  efforts  to 
soften  and  humanize  the  religious  or,  prefer 
ably,  the  dogmatic  spirit.  That  there  is  room 
for  such  a  service,  who  will  seriously  question? 
We  are  still  very  far  from  realizing  the  King 
dom  of  Love  which  the  Nazarene  came  to  es 
tablish  amongst  us. 

Without  presuming  to  supply  a  first  aid  to 
critics,  I  may  perhaps  be  allowed  to  point  out 
that  my  book  is  an  adventure  of  the  Romantic 
spirit,  both  as  regards  the  literary  studies  and 
the  sketches  of  life  herein  attempted.  And  this 
prompts  a  further  observation,  to  wit,  that  the 
mingling  of  such  different  subject  matter, — 
which  yet,  I  hope,  does  not  preclude  a  due  har 
mony  of  the  whole, — is  something  of  a  novelty 
and  an  experiment  in  this  country.  It  is  not 
without  precedent  abroad,  and  may  indeed 
claim,  among  others,  the  illustrious  warrant  of 
Anatole  France. 

It  has  been  remarked  that  nothing  is  so  in 
destructible  as  a  good  book;  and  when  I  re 
member  how  we  struggled  monthly  with  that 


THE  AUTHOR'S  APOLOGY        xi 

vexatious  little  Papyrus,  walking  the  floor  o' 
nights  with  it  and  sparing  no  pains  to  prolong 
its  uncertain  existence — when  I  remember  this 
and  see  how  it  rises  again  more  glorious  in 
the  present  incarnation,  I  wonder  if  mayhap  the 
child  shows  any  stigmata  of  the  life  enduring? 
But  that  is  for  the  wise  and  candid  reader  to 
say. 

MICHAEL  MONAHAN 
New  York 

August,  1922 


I  IN  THE  ATTIC  i? 

II  THE  POE  LEGEND  22 

III  IN  RE  COLONEL  INGERSOLL  57 

IV  RICHARD    WAGNER'S    RO 

MANCE  9° 

V  IN  THE  RED  ROOM  104 

VI  SAINT  MARK  115 

VII  THE  POET'S  ATONEMENT  127 

VIII  CHILDREN  OF  THE  AGE  135 

IX  THE  BLACK  FRIAR  144 

X  LAFCADIO  HEARN  152 

XI  THE  DEFENCE  OF  DAMIEN  172 

XII  A  PORT  OF  AGE  181 

XIII  THE  KINGS  197 

XIV  Louis  THE  GRAND  206 
XV  DINING     WITH     SCHOPEN 
HAUER  214 

XVI  ON  LETTERS  226 

XVII  THE  SONG  THAT  is  SOLOMON'S  235 

xiii 


XIV 


AN  ATTIC  DREAMER 


XVIII  IN  PRAISE  OF  LIFE 

XIX  THE  FORBIDDEN  WAY 

XX  GLORIA  MUNDI 

XXI  THE  SPRING 

XXII  THE  FIRST  LOVE 

XXIII  SEEING  THE  OLD  TOWN 

XXIV  PULVIS  ET  UMBRA 
XXV  SHADOWS 

XXVI  THE  GREAT  REDEMPTION 

XXVII  SURSUM  CORDA 

XXVIII  HOPE 

XXIX  IDEAL 

XXX  LITTLE  MOTHER 

XXXI  LOVE 

XXXII  EPIGRAMS  AND  APHORISMS 

XXXIII  SCRIP    FOR   YOUR   PILGRIM 

AGE 

XXXIV  SONG  OF  THE  RAIN 


240 
248 

254 
258 
263 
270 
278 
287 

293 

298 
302 

305 
308 


324 
330 


L'ENVOI 


332 


AN  ATTIC  DREAMER 


IN   THE   ATTIC 

[By  Way  of  Prologue] 

IN  old  days,  in  merrie  England,  the  chap 
man  or  pamphleteer  set  up  shop  in  an  attic, 
as  much  for  economy's  sake  as  to  be  out  of 
easy  reach  of  the  police.  Commonly  he  bit  the 
thumb  at  Government,  and  the  bilks  were  his 
natural  foes.  Great  men  out  of  place  lent  him 
secret  support  and  countenance,  paying  the 
costs  of  his  perilous  trade  and  supplying  him 
with  matter  for  his  broadsides.  His  fidelity  to 
his  patrons  was  his  best  virtue;  in  other  respects 
of  conduct  he  was,  it  is  to  be  feared,  no  better 
than  he  should  have  been.  But  the  life  was  one 
of  constant  adventure,  and  as  such  appealed  to 
many  daring  spirits.  Often  they  had  to  move, 
and  quickly,  too,  yet  they  were  not  always  quick 
enough  for  the  emissaries  of  Government.  To 
stand  in  the  pillory  and  there  submit  to  the 
nameless  outrages  of  the  London  mob;  to  spend 
long  years  in  jails  fouler  than  a  modern  sewer; 

17 


1 8  AN  ATTIC  DREAMER 

to  be  whipped  and  branded  by  the  sovereign 
majesty  of  the  law;  to  be  hunted  from  one  rook 
ery  to  another — such  was  the  lot  of  many  a 
bold  pamphleteer  of  the  Seventeenth  and  Eigh 
teenth  centuries. 

Ah  well,  my  lads,  they  had  a  stirring  time  of 
it,  for  all  their  hard  lines,  and  potently,  though 
obscurely,  they  made  themselves  felt  on  public 
opinion,  which,  as  hath  been  said,  is  but  history 
in  the  making.  Peace  to  them ! — they  and  their 
types,  their  plotting  and  pamphleteering,  their 
ballads  and  broadsides,  have  long  since  vanished 
from  the  scene;  but  some  echo  of  their  ancient 
hardihood,  some  smack  of  real  service  to  the 
good  old  cause  of  liberty,  which  to  render  they 
so  bravely  risked  life  and  limb, — still  linger  in 
the  world. 

I  therefore  feel  that  in  publishing  The  Papy 
rus  from  an  attic  I  am  in  accord  with  some 
worthy  literary  traditions.  To  be  sure,  it's  a 
very  nice  attic  and  roomy  enough — well 
lighted,  too,  with  walls  and  ceiling  finished  off 
and  calcimined.  Strictly  speaking,  The  Papyrus 
occupies  only  half  the  attic;  the  other  half, 
which  by  a  lucky  chance  is  quite  separate  and 
partitioned  off,  the  younger  children  use  for  a 
playhouse  on  rainy  days.  Oh,  and  I  had  al- 


IN  THE  ATTIC  19 

most  forgotten,  the  family  linen  is  sometimes 
dried  here,  with  great  convenience. 

Allah  is  both  wise  and  good.  He  sometimes 
puts  it  into  the  stony  heart  of  a  landlord  (Jer 
sey  landlord  at  that)  to  make  unwitting  pro 
vision  for  the  Children  of  the  Dream. 

The  stairway  leading  to  both  attics  is  quite 
dark,  and  it  turns  sharply,  but  we  don't  feel 
that  to  be  a  great  objection,  as  the  Youngest  is 
now  walking  and  only  swarms  when  he  is  going 
down  stairs — which  he  does  backward  and  with 
remarkable  celerity. 

Once  a  month  the  children  have  great  fun 
carrying  the  little  brown  booklets  from  the  low 
er  floor,  where  the  printer  delivers  them,  to  the 
attic;  and  again  from  the  attic  to  the  lower 
floor,  when  ready  to  be  mailed.  That  is,  they 
think  it's  great  fun — and  surely  a  large  family 
is  not  without  its  compensations. 

The  Papyrus,  by  the  way,  is  just  the  age  of 
our  Youngest  but  One,  a  five-year-old  girl.  I 
am  not  sure  of  which  I  am  the  fonder,  but  the 
Mother,  with  a  touch  of  artistic  jealousy,  says 
she  is  ... 

I  love  this  little  attic  room.  Here  I  spend 
the  only  quiet  hours  that  I  may  really  call  mine. 


20  AN  ATTIC  DREAMER 

Here,  with  the  world  and  its  taskmasters  shut 
out,  I  cheat  myself  with  a  dream  of  indepen 
dence—ah,  an  uneasy  dream  at  best,  and  a  fleet 
ing  one,  but  yet  it  links  day  unto  day  with  a 
thread  of  gold.  The  good  thoughts  that  come 
only  with  silence — peace  without  and  within — 
have  here  their  dwelling  place.  Here,  too,  I 
listen  oft  to  a  Voice  which  speaks  of  the  sure, 
though  late,  reward  that  waits  on  unyielding 
effort,  on  hope  that  springs  anew  from  each  de 
feat,  on  faith  in  self  that  can  stand  against  the 
world,  on  fidelity  to  the  Dream! 

Yes,  even  though  knowing  myself  unworthy 
of  the  high  call  it  would  lay  upon  me,  I  do 
hearken  to  that  Voice — aye,  and  often  sigh  that 
I  may  not  rise  to  those  heights  of  heroism  to 
which  it  points  me. 

O  little  attic  room,  that  has  shared  the  secret 
of  my  dearest  cherished  hopes,  that  has  known 
and  ever  knows  something  not  all  unworthy  in 
me  which  to  express  is  at  once  my  joy  and  my 
despair, — who  shall  sit  here  in  days  to  come 
when  I  am  gone  ?  Pray  God  it  be  one  who  may 
think  not  unkindly  of  him  that  dreamed  his 
dreams  here  for  a  space,  and  was,  in  his  fash 
ion,  happy  within  your  quiet  walls.  .  .  . 

More  commonly,   however,   I   think  of  my 


IN  THE  ATTIC  21 

literary  predecessors,  the  old  English  chapmen 
and  pamphleteers  in  their  attics,  and  how  the 
wind  of  time  has  long  since  blown  them  and 
their  works  away. 

And  I  smile  to  myself,  once  more  put  off 
beginning  my  Masterpiece  .  .  .  well,  till  to 
morrow;  turn  down  the  light,  and  go  softly  to 
bed. 


II 

THE    POE    LEGEND 
[y/w  Unconventional  Version} 

A  COMPLIMENT     which     mediocrity 
often  pays  to  genius,  is  to  indict  it. 
So    there    is    an    indictment    against 
Edgar  Allan  Poe,  with  a  bill  of  particulars,  the 
effect  of  which  is  to  make  him  out  the  chief 
Horrible  Example  of  our  literary  history. 

Most  of  his  critics  admit  that  he  was  a 
genius  and  deny  that  he  was  a  respectable  per 
son. 

A  considerable  number  deny  his  respectability 
with  warmth,  and  coldly  concede  to  him  a  cer 
tain  measure  of  poetical  talent. 

A  few  embittered  ones  deny  that  he  was 
either  respectable  or  a  genius. 

No  one  has  ever  contended  for  him  that  he 
was  both  a  genius  and  respectable.  I  do  not 
make  this  claim,  as  I  should  not  wish  to  appear 
too  original;  and,  besides,  I  am  content  with 

22 


THE  POE  LEGEND  23 

the  fact  of  his  genius,  and  care  nothing  for 
the  question  of  respectability.  Or,  yes,  I  do 
care  something  for  it,  if  by  respectability  is 
meant  that  prudent  regard  for  self  which  would 
have  prevented  the  suicide  of  Poe.  I'm  sure 
if  he  were  living  to-day,  he  would  never  think 
of  drinking  himself  to  death.  His  work  would 
be  better  paid,  for  one  thing, — supposing  that 
he  could  get  past  the  magazine  editors, — and 
then  we  have  learned  a  little  how  to  drink — the 
art  was  crude  and  brutal  in  Poe's  day.  Per 
haps  this  is  the  only  respect  in  which  we,  the 
children  of  a  later  generation,  are  better  artists 
than  he. 

It  is  true  that  some  eminent  living  poets  are 
quite  successful  in  keeping  sober,  and  they  are 
even  more  successful  in  writing  poetry  which  is 
not  so  good  as  Poe's! 

In  brief,  conventionality  bids  fair  to  kill  off 
the  poet  and  place  him  at  no  distant  date  in  the 
category  of  extinct  species. 

True  poetry  is  something  awful,  mysterious, 
as  beautiful  and  terrible  as  the  lightning's  leap 
in  the  collied  heaven,  charming  the  eye  with 
dread  and  rousing  the  soul  to  a  quick  sense  of 
the  Power  behind  the  mechanism  of  nature ! 
Now  it  is  difficult  to  associate  this  idea  with  a 


24  AN  ATTIC  DREAMER 

type  of  poet  that  offers  no  food  for  wonder  and 
leaves  us  no  ground  for  illusions. 

No  doubt  many  a  respectable  poet  would 
pitch  the  proprieties  to  Hell,  if  he  could  be  sure 
that  by  so  doing  he  would  land  beside  Villon 
and  Burns  and  Byron  and  Poe.  But  that  is  a 
large  "if",  and  in  our  day  it  is  almost  as  hard 
to  live  the  old  life  of  the  poet  as  to  recapture 
his  careless  lyric  rapture  and  the  secret  of  his 
wild  genius. 

Indeed,  if  we  may  believe  the  Philistines  of 
the  hour,  the  personality  of  the  poet  is  no 
longer  much  in  question;  seeing  that  he  is  re 
duced  or,  if  you  please,  elevated  to  a  perfectly 
respectable  type ;  offers  no  shocking  singulari 
ties  of  character  or  conduct;  is  often  arrayed  as 
the  lilies  and  bidden  to  discourse  platitudes  be 
fore  young  ladies'  seminaries;  and  has  modest 
hopes  of  being  one  day  decorated  as  a  Doctor 
Litterarum. 

But  look  you,  there  are  some  amongst  us  who 
will  fight  until  their  eyelids  can  no  longer  wag, 
against  this  caricature  of  the  Poet.  Human 
nature,  too,  is  opposed  to  it,  and  the  heresy  is 
not  written  in  the  Holy  Book  of  Genius.  I  do 
not  contend  that  literature  must  be  a  species 


THE  POE  LEGEND  25 

of  Newgate  Calendar,*  a  history  of  tragedies, 
errors  and  defeats: — that  were  to  overdarken 
the  picture.  But  I  shall  venture  to  hold  suspect 
the  man  who  comes  smiling  and  sleek  and  pros 
perous  before  me,  in  the  awful  name  of  Poet; 
with  no  signs  upon  him  of  agony  and  wrestling, 
and  no  visible  wounds  from  the  embraces  of 
his  God. 

II 

THE  tradition  of  Poe's  drunkenness,  or  to 
speak  scientifically,  dipsomania,  hangs  on 
so  persistently  that  many  people  can  think  of 
him  only  in  connection  with  that  still  unforgot- 
ten  melodrama,  "Ten  Nights  in  a  Barroom". 
As  a  boy  I  used  to  fancy  that  he  was  cut  out 
for  the  leading  part  in  it.  And  in  fact  I  saw 
a  play  not  long  ago — in  the  provinces,  of 
course — in  which  the  author  of  "The  Raven" 
was  shown  drunk  in  every  act  and  working  up 
to  a  brilliant  climax  of  the  "horrors".  .  .  . 

When  I  try  to  summon  before  my  mind's  eye 
the  figure  of  Poe,  the  man  in  his  habit  as  he 
lived,  his  daily  walks  and  associates,  the  picture 
is  at  once  broken  up  by  an  irruption  of  red  and 

*  This  was  Carlyle's  notion  ai>d  phrase. 


26  AN  ATTIC  DREAMER 

angry  faces — old  John  Allan,  Burton  the 
Comedian  (who  could  be  so  tragically  in  ear 
nest,  and  so  damned  virtuous  with  a  poor  poet) , 
White,  Griswold,  Wilmer,  Graham,  Briggs,  the 
sweet  singer  of  "Ben  Bolt",  and  others  of  the 
queer  literati  of  that  day.  Each  and  all  declare 
in  staccato,  with  positive  forefinger  raised, 
"We  tell  you  the  man  was  drunk!"  Then  Absa 
lom  Willis  appears,  bowing  daintily,  and  says  in 
mild  deprecation,  "No,  I  would  not  precisely 
say  drunk — but  do  me  the  honor  to  read  my 
article  on  the  subject  in  the  'Home  Journal'." 
The  saintly  Longfellow,  evoked  from  the 
shades,  seems  to  add,  "Not  merely  drunk,  but 
malignant".  And  a  host  of  forgotten  poet 
asters  looming  dimly  in  the  background,  take 
up  the  Psalmist's  words  and  make  a  refrain  of 
them — "Not  merely  drunk,  but  malignant!" 

Since  this  is  what  we  get,  in  lieu  of  biog 
raphy,  by  those  who  have  taken  the  life  of  Poe, 
it  is  no  wonder  that  the  obscure  dramatist 
seizes  on  the  same  stuff  for  his  purpose,  de 
grading  the  most  famous  of  our  poets  to  the 
level  of  a  barroom  hero.  Whether  or  not  it  is 
possible  at  this  late  day  to  separate  the  fame 
of  Poe  from  the  foul  legend  of  drunkenness 
and  sodden  dissipation  that  has  gathered  about 


THE  POE  LEGEND  27 

it,  I  would  not  venture  to  say;  but  very  sure  am 
I  that  no  one  has  yet  attempted  the  feat.  Even 
the  mild  and  half-apologetic  Dr.  Woodberry  is 
gravely  interested  in  the  number,  extent  and 
variety  of  Poe's  drunks.  Let  me  not  forget  one 
honorable  exception,  Edmund  Clarence  Sted- 
man,  who  has  taken  his  brother  poet,  uas  he 
was  and  for  what  he  was".  I  do  not,  how 
ever,  include  Mr.  Stedman  with  the  biogra 
phers  of  Poe — he  stands  rather  at  the  head 
of  those  who  have  sought  to  interpret  his  genius 
and  to  safeguard  his  literary  legacy.  And 
though  (I  think)  he  brought  no  great  love  to 
the  task — Poe  is  hardly  a  subject  to  inspire  love 
— he  has  done  it  fairly  and  well. 

I  may  here  observe,  parenthetically,  that  in  a 
very  kind  letter  addressed  to  the  author,  Mr. 
Stedman  demurs  at  the  suggestion  that  he 
brought  no  great  love  to  his  critical  labors  in 
behalf  of  Poe — labors  that  have  unquestionably 
raised  the  poet's  literary  status  in  the  view  of 
many,  and  have  as  certainly  cleared  away  a 
mass  of  prejudice,  evil  report  and  misunder 
standing  attached  to  his  personal  character  and 
reputation.  But  all  I  mean  to  convey  is,  that 
Mr.  Stedman's  splendid  work  was  done,  as  it 
appears  to  me,  less  for  the  love  of  Poe  than 


28  AN  ATTIC  DREAMER 

for  the  love  of  letters.  In  saying  this  I  imply 
not  the  slightest  reproach :  Poe  is  a  man  to  be 
pitied,  praised,  admired,  regretted;  or,  if  you 
please,  to  be  hated,  envied,  blamed,  and  con 
demned.  But  love — such  love,  say,  as  Lamb 
inspired  in  his  friends  and  still  inspires  in  his 
readers — is  not  for  the  lonely  singer  of 
ulsrafel". 

I  agree  with  Poe's  biographers  that  he  got 
drunk  often,  but  I  am  only  sorry  that  he  never 
got  any  fun  out  of  it — the  man  was  essentially 
unhumorous.  I  should  be  glad  to  hold  a  brief 
for  Poe's  drunkenness,  if  his  tippling  ever  yield 
ed  him  any  solace;  or,  better  still,  if  it  ever 
inspired  him  to  any  genuine  literary  effort.  We 
know  well  that  some  great  poets  have  success 
fully  wooed  the  Muse  in  their  cups,  but  you  can 
take  my  word  for  it,  they  were  cold  sober  when 
they  worked  the  thing  out.  It  is  true  Emerson 
says  (after  Milton)  that  the  poet  who  is  to  see 
visions  of  the  gods  should  drink  only  water 
out  of  a  wooden  bowl;  but  Emerson  belonged 
to  the  unjoyous  race  of  New  England  Brah 
mins,  who  were  surprisingly  like  the  snow-men 
children  make,  in  that  they  lacked  natural  heat 
and  rude  passions.  We  may  not  forget  that  a 
poet  who  stands  for  all  time  as  an  ideal  type  of 


THE  POE  LEGEND  29 

sanity  and  genius — the  always  contemporary 
Quintus  Horatius  Flaccus — has  in  many  places 
guaranteed  mediocrity  to  the  abstaining  bard.* 
So  there  was  the  best  poetical  warrant  for 
Poe's  drinking,  if  he  could  only  have  got  any 
good  out  of  it.  But  he  couldn't  and  didn't;  he 
was  merely,  at  times  frequent  enough  to  jus 
tify  his  enemies,  an  ordinary  dipsomaniac,  crav 
ing  the  madness  of  alcohol;  mirthless,  darkly 
sullen,  quite  insane,  though  perhaps  physically 
harmless;  hardly  conscious  of  his  own  identity. 
Of  the  genial  god  Bacchus,  who  rewards  his 
true  devotees  with  jollity  and  mirth,  with  for- 
getfulness  of  care  and  the  golden  promise  of 
fortune,  who  makes  poets  of  dull  men  and  gods 
of  poets — of  this  splendid  and  beneficent  deity, 
Poe  knew  nothing.  That  spell  from  which 
Horace  drew  his  most  charming  visions;  which 
inspired  Burns  with  courage  to  sing  amid  the 
hopeless  poverty  of  his  lot;  which  kindled  the 
genius  of  Byron  and  allured  the  fancy  of  Heine, 
like  his  own  Lorelei;  which  is  three-fourths  of 
Beranger  and  one-half  of  Moore — to  Poe 

*  I  need  only  cite  the  famous  lines — 

— nee  vivere  carmina  possunt 

Qua  scribuntur  aquae  potoribus. 
Which  may  be  rudely  Englished — 

O  water-drinking  bards,  how  brief  the  date 

Your  laurels  flourish,  tho'  so  "dry"  your  state  1 


30  AN  ATTIC  DREAMER 

meant  only  madness,  the  sordid  kind  from 
which  men  turn  away  with  horror  and  disgust, 
and  which  too  often  leads  to  the  clinic  and  the 
potter's  field.  The  kindly  spirit  of  wine,  that 
for  a  brief  time  at  least  works  an  inspiring 
change  in  every  man,  enlarging  the  sympathies, 
softening  the  heart,  prompting  new  and  gen 
erous  impulses,  opening  the  soul  shut  up  to  self 
to  the  greater  claims  and  interests  of  humanity, 
was,  in  the  case  of  Poe,  turned  into  a  malefic 
genie,  intent  only  upon  the  lowest  forms  of 
animal  gratification,  and  reckless  of  any  and 
every  ill  wrought  to  body  and  soul. 

In  other  words — for  I  must  not  write  a  con 
ventional  essay — Poe  was  the  kind  of  man  that 
never  should  have  touched  the  cup.  For  there 
are  some  men — oh,  yes,  I  know  it  I — to  whom 
the  mildest  wine  ever  distilled  from  grapes 
kissed  by  the  sun  in  laughing  valleys,  is  deadly 
poison,  fatal  as  that  draught  brewed  of  old  by 
the  Colchian  enchantress.  And  of  these  was 
poor  Edgar  Poe. 

Neither  were  there  for  him  those  negative 
but  still  pleasing  virtues  which  are  sometimes 
credited  to  a  worshiper  of  the  great  god 
Bacchus — perhaps  they  are  mostly  fictitious,  but 
this  is  a  fraud  at  which  Virtue  herself  may  con- 


THE  POE  LEGEND  31 

nive.  I  am  very  sure  no  one  ever  called  Poe 
a  "good  fellow"  for  all  the  whiskey  he  drank; 
and  his  biographers  also  make  the  same  omis 
sion.  The  drunkenness  of  Burns  calls  up  the 
laughing  genius  of  a  hundred  matchless  ballads, 
the  dance,  the  fair,  and  the  hot  love  that  fol 
lowed  close  upon;  calls  up  the  epic  riot  of  beg 
gars  in  the  alehouse  of  Poosie  Nancy — and  we 
see  the  whole  vivid  life  of  Burns  was  of  a  piece 
with  his  poetry.  To  wish  him  less  drunken  or 
more  sober  (if  you  prefer  it)  is  to  wish  him 
less  a  poet. 

Not  so  with  Poe,  as  I  have  already  shown. 
He  got  nothing  from  drink,  in  the  way  of  lit 
erary  inspiration,  though  some  of  his  critics 
think  he  did,  and,  being  themselves  both  sober 
and  dull,  appear  to  doubt  whether  anything  so 
gotten  is  legitimate.  I  hate  to  lay  irreverent 
hands  on  the  popular  belief  that  "The  Raven" 
was  composed  during  or  just  following  a  crisis 
of  drunken  delirium — the  poem  is  too  elab 
orately  artificial  for  that, — and  has  not  Poe 
told  us  how  he  wrote  it,  in  a  confession  which, 
more  clearly  than  all  the  labored  disparage 
ment  of  his  biographers,  explains  the  vanity, 
the  weakness  and  the  fatal  lack  of  humor  in  his 
make-up?  I  do  not  find  any  suggestions  of 


32  AN  ATTIC  DREAMER 

drink  or  "dope"  in  the  samples  of  his  prose 
which  I  dislike,  such  as  a  few  of  his  "Old 
World  Romances".  If  there  be  any  "dope" 
in  this  stuff,  it  is,  in  my  opinion,  the  natural 
dope  of  faculties  when  driven  against  their 
will  to  attempt  things  beyond  the  writer's  prov 
ince  or  power.  And  there  is  also  the  "dope"  of 
what  could  be,  at  times,  a  fearfully  bad  style. 
But  I  am  not  writing  a  literary  essay. 

I  conclude,  then,  that  in  the  case  of  Edgar 
Allan  Poe,  drink  has  no  extenuating  circum 
stances,  though  many  might  be  pleaded  for  the 
poet  himself.  It  made  enemies  for  him  of 
those  who  wanted  to  be  his  friends  (if  you  will 
only  believe  them)  ;  it  lost  him  his  money — 
deuced  little  of  it  ever  he  had;  it  helped  to 
break  his  health,  and  it  gave  him  no  valuable 
literary  inspiration.  Some  solace,  I  would 
gladly  think,  it  yielded  him,  and  mayhap  (who 
knows?)  there  was  a  blessed  nepenthe  in  the 
peace  it  brought  him  at  last  when,  after  bab 
bling  a  while  on  his  cot  in  that  Baltimore  hos 
pital,  there  came  to  him  the  only  dreamless 
sleep  he  ever  knew. 


THE  POE  LEGEND  33 

in 

ALL  his  life  long  Poe  dreamed  of  having  a 
magazine  of  his  own,  and  never  got  his 
desire.  He  was  always  writing  to  his  friends 
and  possible  patrons  about  this  one  darling 
dream;  but  nothing  came  of  it.  The  nearest 
he  ever  got  to  his  wish  was  when  he  succeeded 
in  drawing  into  his  plan  one  T.  C.  Clarke,  a 
Philadelphia  publisher.  Clarke  had  money, 
and  he  put  up  a  certain  amount  toward  the 
starting  of  the  "Penn",  as  the  magazine  was  to 
be  called.  Some  initial  steps  were  taken,  and 
the  moment  seems  to  have  been  the  most  san 
guine  in  Poe's  long  battle  with  adversity.  He 
was  full  of  enthusiasm  and  wrote  to  many 
friends,  detailing  his  literary  hopes  and  projects 
in  connection  with  the  new  magazine.  Then 
suddenly,  and  rather  unaccountably,  everything 
was  dropped.  It  seems  likely  that  Clarke  took 
cold  in  his  money — at  any  rate,  the  "Penn" 
died  a-borning.  Poe  had  gone  far  enough  to 
incur  a  large-sized  debt  to  Clarke : — he  left  in 
the  latter's  hand  a  manuscript  as  security, 
which,  we  may  suppose,  did  not  raise  the  tem 
perature  of  that  gentleman's  finances. 

Then  the  planning  and  the  letter-writing  and 


34  AN  ATTIC  DREAMER 

the  making  of  prospectuses,  with  other  archi 
tectural  projects  of  the  Spanish  variety,  went 
on  and  continued  to  the  end  of  the  chapter — 
good  God!  how  pathetic  and  yet  how  grimly 
humorous  it  all  is  to  one  who  has  carried  the 
same  cross,  and  knows  every  inch  of  that  Cal 
vary!  Poe  was  at  least  spared  the  struggle 
which  comes  after  possession;  but  I  am  aware 
that  this  is  no  consolation  to  the  man  who  is 
dying  to  make  his  fight. 

Yet  once  again  the  chance  fluttered  into  his 
hands,  when  he  bought  the  "Broadway  Jour 
nal"  from  a  man  named  Bisco  with  a  note  of 
fifty  dollars  endorsed  by  Horace  Greeley.  Not 
long  afterward  Horace  had  the  pleasure  of 
paying  the  note,  and  he  remained  to  the  end 
a  strong  believer  in  Poe's  imaginative  gifts. 
About  the  same  time  that  the  philosopher  part 
ed  with  his  money,  Poe  gave  up  his  brief  pos 
session  of  the  "Journal".  But  still  he  went  on 
in  the  old  hopeless,  hopeful  way,  dreaming  of 
that  blessed  magazine,  which  he  had  now  de 
cided  to  call  the  "Stylus"  instead  of  the 
"Penn".  And  a  name  only  it  remained  to  the 
last. 

From  these  and  many  similar  facts  in  the  life 
of  Poe  his  biographers  to  a  man  conclude  that 


THE  POE  LEGEND  35 

he  had  no  business  ability.  I  am  not  so  sure — I 
am  only  sure  that  he  never  had  the  money. 
In  fact,  Poe  was  never  able  to  raise  more  than 
one  hundred  dollars  at  any  one  time  in  his  whole 
life — once  when  he  borrowed  that  sum  to  get 
married  (and  the  sneerers  say,  forgot  to  repay 
it),  and  again  when  he  won  a  like  amount  with 
a  prize  story.  Yes,  he  got  a  judgment  of 
something  over  two  hundred  dollars  against  his 
savage  foe,  Thomas  Dunn  English,*  but  I  am 
not  aware  that  it  was  ever  satisfied — think  of 
Poe  suing  a  man  for  literary  libel !  His  usual 
salary  was  ten  dollars  a  week — Burton,  the 
tragic  Comedian,  held  out  a  promise  of  more, 
but  discharged  him  when  the  time  to  make  good 
came  around — and  this  after  Poe  had  gained 
what  was  considered  a  literary  reputation  in 
those  days.  With  such  resources,  to  have  start 
ed  the  kind  of  magazine  Poe  had  always  in 
mind,  would  have  tasked  a  man  of  great  busi 
ness  ability,  with  no  poetical  ideas  floating 
about  in  his  head  to  divert  him  from  the  Main 
Chance. 

Certainly  Poe  was  not  the  man  for  the  job — 

*A  mediocre  and  prolific  poet  of  whose  works  scarcely 
anything  is  now  remembered  or  reprinted,  save  the  once 
popular  ballad,  "Ben  Bolt",  which  owes  its  later  recrudes 
cence  to  "Trilby". 


36  AN  ATTIC  DREAMER 

I  doubt  if  he  could  have  sold  shares  in  El  Do 
rado.  But  I  do  not  think  his  failures,  such  as 
they  were,  justly  convict  him  of  a  complete  lack 
of  that  ordinary  sense  which  enables  a  man  to 
carry  his  money  as  far  as  the  corner.  There 
is  a  popular  cant  now,  based  on  the  success  of 
some  fortunate  writers,  that  literary  genius  of 
high  order  is  not  inconsistent  with  first-rate 
business  ability.  I  do  not  care  to  go  into  the 
discussion — especially  as  this  is  not  a  literary 
essay — but  I  will  say  that  in  most  instances 
cited  to  prove  the  point,  the  money  sense  is  a 
good  deal  more  obvious  than  the  literary 
genius. 

To  make  what  is  called  a  business  success  in 
this  world,  a  man  is  required  to  do  homage 
unto  many  gods.  But  though  he  pay  the  most 
devoted  worship  to  the  divinities  of  Thrift, 
Enterprise,  Courage,  Energy,  Foresight,  Cal 
culation,  he  will  still  fail  should  he  omit  his 
tribute  to  a  greater  god  than  these — Expedi 
ency! 

In  his  poetical  way  Edgar  Allan  Poe  went 
a-questing  after  many  strange  worships,  and  he 
was  learned  in  all  that  mystic  lore  as  far  back 
as  the  Chaldeans.  But  he  seems  never  to  have 
got  an  inkling  of  that  one  Universal  Religion 


THE  POE  LEGEND  37 

in  which  all  men  believe,  which  settles  all 
earthly  things — the  inexorable  Divinity  of 
Affairs,  already  named,  by  which  success  or 
failure  is  determined  for  every  man  that 
cometh  into  the  world. 


IV 


TOWARD  the  close  of  Poe's  life  a  horde 
of  female  poets  rushed  upon  his  trail. 
His  relations  with  them  were  not  wholly  "free 
from  blame",  to  quote  his  biographers — they 
seem  to  have  been,  at  any  rate,  Platonic.  In 
deed,  the  fact  is  self-evident.  A  poetess  who 
is  always  studying  her  own  emotions  for  "copy", 
is  not  to  be  taken  unawares.  I  think  Poe  was 
in  more  danger  of  being  led  astray  than  any 
of  the  ladies  whom  he  distinguished  with  his 
attentions.  It  is  to  be  noted  that  they  invari 
ably  speak  of  him  as  a  "perfect  gentleman", 
even  after  he  has  ceased  to  honor  them  with 
his  affections.  To  me  there  is  something  rather 
literary  than  womanly  in  such  angelic  charity 
and  forgiveness — 'tis  too  sugary  sweet.  Have 
we  not  heard  that  lovers  estranged  make  the 
bitterest  enemies?  At  any  rate,  the  lover  of 
"Ligeia",  "Eleonora"  and  similar  abstractions 


38  AN  ATTIC  DREAMER 

was  not  a  man  to  be  feared  by  a  poetess  of  well- 
seasoned  virtue. 

Yes,  I  am  sure  they  only  wanted  to  get  copy 
out  of  him,  and  especially  to  link  their  names 
with  his.  They  were  mostly  widows,  too — 
which  makes  the  thing  even  more  suspicious. 
One  of  them — that  one  to  whom  he  addressed 
his  finest  lyric — was  forty-five.  Lord,  Lord! 
what  liars  these  poets  are  !  I  give  you  my  word 
that  until  very  lately,  I  believed  those  perfect 
lines  "To  Helen"  idealized  some  youthful  love 
of  Poe's. 

Ah  1  Psyche,  from  the  regions  which 
Are  holy  land. 

Psyche  lived  in  Providence,  which  is  in  the 
State  of  Rhode  Island.  She  was,  as  I  have 
said,  forty-five,  an  age  that  should  be  above 
tempting  or  temptation.  She  wrote  verses,  now 
forgotten,  and  her  passion  for  Poe  was  of  the 
most  literary  character.  After  a  two-days' 
courtship  he  proposed  to  her  and  was  accepted, 
on  condition,  however,  that  he  amend  his  breath 
— which  is  to  say,  his  habits.  Poe  seems  to 
have  regretted  his  rashness,  for  he  at  once 
started  on  a  bat  (these  remarks  are  not  liter 
ary),  as  if  the  prospect  of  his  joy  were  too 


THE  POE  LEGEND  39 

much  for  him.  Still  Helen  would  not  reject 
him;  she  merely  wrote  him  more  poetry — and 
the  poet  again  turned  to  drink  as  if  to  drown 
a  great  sorrow.  A  day  was  set  for  the  wed 
ding,  and  he  began  celebrating  at  the  hotel  bar 
long  before  the  hour  appointed  for  the  cere 
mony.  Helen  heard  of  his  early  start,  and, 
knowing  what  he  could  do  in  a  long  day  with 
such  an  advantage,  she  sent  for  him  and  broke 
off  the  engagement.  This  is  the  only  instance 
I  know  of  in  Poe's  entire  career  where  his 
drinking  had  the  least  appearance  of  sanity. 

Before  this,  and  indeed  during  the  lifetime 
of  Mrs.  Poe,  he  had  broken  with  Mrs.  Ellet,  a 
lady  who  made  feeble  verse,  but  whose  ability 
for  scandal  and  mischief  was  out  of  the  ordi 
nary.  It  was  through  this  daughter  of  the 
Muses  that  the  poet  became  estranged  from 
Mrs.  Osgood,  and  there  was  a  beautiful  wom 
en's  row,  in  which  Margaret  Fuller  took  a 
hand.  Mrs.  Osgood  was  a  gushing  person, 
ferociously  intent  on  "copy",  but  of  mature  age 
and  quite  capable  of  taking  care  of  herself. 
She  declares  and  asseverates  that  Poe  chased 
her  to  Providence — that  fatal  Providence  !— 
likewise  to  Albany,  imploring  her  to  love  him. 
I  wonder  where  he  got  the  money  for  these 


40  AN  ATTIC  DREAMER 

journeys — about  this  time  he  was  lecturing  on 
the  "Cosmogony  of  the  Universe",  in  order  to 
raise  funds  for  his  eternally  projected  maga 
zine.  The  very  popular  nature  of  the  subject 
and  his  own  qualities  as  a  lyceum  entertainer, — 
which  never  would  have  commended  him  to  the 
late  Major  Pond — incline  me  to  the  belief  that 
Poe  was  not  at  that  time  burning  much  money 
in  trips  to  Providence  and  Albany. 

At  any  rate,  Mrs.  Osgood  cut  him  out, 
though  on  her  deathbed,  with  a  last  effort  of 
the  ruling  passion  (or  literary  motive)  she  very 
handsomely  forgave  him  and  pronounced  a 
touching  eulogy  on  his  moral  character. 

Then  there  was  "Annie",  a  married  woman 
living  near  Boston,  to  whom  Poe  addressed  a 
sincere  and  beautiful  poem.  The  exigencies  of 
her  case  rather  strain  the  Platonic  theory,  but 
I  do  not  give  up  my  brief,  mind  you.  I  suspect 
that  Annie  was  behind  the  breaking  off  with 
Helen;  but,  of  course,  he  couldn't  marry  Annie 
for  the  reason  that  she  had  a  husband  already 
(of  whom  we  know  no  more),  and  divorces 
were  not  then  negotiated  in  record  time.  Annie 
was  therefore  obliged  to  be  content  with  the 
sweet  satisfaction  of  foiling  a  hated  rival — and 
to  a  woman's  heart,  we  know  this  is  the  next 


THE  POE  LEGEND  41 

best  thing  to  landing  the  man.  Annie,  by  the 
way,  was  not  a  literary  person;  she  wanted  love 
from  Poe,  not  copy;  and  she  seems  to  have  sin 
cerely,  if  not  very  sensibly,  loved  the  poet  for 
himself. 

Remains  the  last  of  these  queer  attachments 
which  throw  a  kind  of  grotesque  romance  over 
the  closing  years  of  Poe.  Mrs.  Shelton  was  of 
unimpeached  maturity,  like  the  rest,  and  like 
all  the  rest  but  one,  a  widow.  She  lived  in  Rich 
mond,  Virginia,  and  she  had  been  a  boyish 
flame  of  Poe's.  Mrs.  Shelton  was  neither  beau 
tiful  nor  literary,  and  she  had  attained  the  ripe 
age  of  fifty  years.  But  she  was  rich,  and 
though  Poe  was  not  a  business  man,  I  dare  say 
he  felt  the  money  would  be  no  great  inconveni 
ence — and  then  there  was  always  the  magazine 
to  be  started,  dear  me !  Still  he  made  love  to 
her  as  if  half  afraid  she  would  take  him  at  his 
word — and  he  kept  writing  to  Annie !  But 
Mrs.  Shelton  was  of  sterner  stuff  than  the  poetic 
Helen.  She  had  made  up  her  mind  to  marry 
Poe  for  reasons  sufficient  unto  herself,  and  she 
would  have  done  it  had  not  fate  intervened. 
She  made  her  preparations  like  a  thorough 
business  woman,  and  strong-mindedly  led  the 
way  toward  the  altar.  The  wedding  ring  was 


42  AN  ATTIC  DREAMER 

bought  (I  can  hardly  believe  with  Poe's 
money),  and  all  things  were  in  readiness  for 
the  happy  event,  when  the  poet  wandered  away 
on  that  luckless  journey  whose  end  was  in  an 
other  world. 

Mrs.  Shelton  wore  mourning  for  him,  and  all 
her  women  friends  told  her  it  was  wonderfully 
becoming.  ...  I  think  Annie's  crape  was 
at  the  heart. 

Edgar  Allan  Poe  was  a  child  in  the  hands  of 
women,  and  that's  the  whole  truth — a  loving, 
weak,  vain  and  irresponsible  child.  This  count 
in  the  indictment  is  the  weakest  of  all.  I  should 
not  have  referred  to  it  were  this  a  conventional 
"study"  of  the  Poet. 

V 

THE  notion  that  Poe  was  mad  has  within 
late  years  received  a  quasi-scientific  con 
firmation — at  least  the  doctors  have  settled  the 
matter  to  their  own  satisfaction.  I  therefore 
advert  to  it  in  order  to  dispose  of  the  Poe  in 
dictment  in  full. 

My  learned  friend,  Dr.  William  Lee  How 
ard,  of  Baltimore  (a  town  forever  memorable 
to  the  lovers  of  the  poet) ,  sets  out  to  prove  that 
Edgar  Allan  Poe  was  not  a  drunkard  in  the 


THE  POE  LEGEND  43 

ordinary  sense  (which  is  ordinarily  believed), 
but  was  rather  what  the  medical  experts  are 
now  calling  a  psychopath;  in  plain  words,  a 
madman.  "He  belongs,"  says  the  doctor,  "to 
that  class  of  psychopaths  too  long  blamed  and 
accused  of  vicious  habits  that  are  really  symp 
toms  of  disease — a  disease  now  recognized  by 
neurologists  as  psychic  epilepsy."  The  doctor 
fortifies  his  thesis  with  much  learning  of  the 
same  portentous  kind,  and  in  conclusion  he 
says: 

"The  psychologist  readily  understands  the 
reason  for  Poe's  intensity,  for  his  cosmic  terror 
and  his  constant  dwelling  upon  the  aspects  of 
physical  decay.  He  lived  alternately  a  life  of 
obsession  and  lucidity,  and  this  duality  is  the 
explanation  of  his  being  so  shamefully  mis 
understood — so  highly  praised,  so  cruelly 
blamed.  In  most  of  his  weird  and  fantastic 
tales  we  can  see  the  patient  emerging  from  ob 
livion.  We  find  in  his  case  many  of  the  pri 
mary  symptoms  of  the  psychopath — a  dis 
ordered  and  disturbed  comprehension  of  con 
cepts,  suspicion,  and  exaggerated  ideas  of  per 


secution." 


These  be  words  horrendous  and  mouth-fill 
ing,  but  surely  I  need  not  remind  the  erudite 
Dr.  Howard  that — 


44  AN  ATTIC  DREAMER 

When   Bishop   Berkeley   said   there  was  no 

matter, 
And  proved  it — 'twas  no   matter  what  he 

said. 

And  I  suspect  Dr.  Howard  in  coming,  as 
he  thinks,  to  the  defence  of  Poe's  reputation, 
has  done  the  poet  an  ill  service,  though  I 
doubt  if  he  will  influence  any  right-judging 
minds.  Nor  am  I  in  sympathy  with  the 
doctor's  ingenious  argument  that  the  most 
strongly  marked  products  of  Poe's  genius  are 
to  be  referred  to  a  diseased  mental  and  nervous 
condition;  which  is  simply  Nordau's  conten 
tion  that  all  genius  is  disease.  According  to 
this  view,  all  men  of  great  intellectual  power 
— e.  g.y  Nordau  himself  and  Dr.  William  Lee 
Howard — are  insane;  and  yet  it  is  a  fact  that 
the  madhouses  are  chiefly  peopled  with  the 
average  sort  of  human  beings. 

No,  the  first  of  American  poets  was  not  mad 
because  he  wrote  "The  Raven",  and  "The 
House  of  Usher",  and  "Ligeia",  and  "The  Red 
Death".  These  masterpieces  indeed  prove  that 
he  was  at  certain  fortunate  times  in  possession 
of  that  highest  and  most  potential  sanity,  that 
mens  divinior,  from  which  true  artistic  creation 


THE  POE  LEGEND  45 

results — always  the  rarest  and  most  beautiful 
phenomenon  in  the  world. 

Mad?  I  guess  not!  but  no  doubt  he  was 
thought  to  be  cracked  by  the  half  of  his  ac 
quaintance,  for  such  is  the  tribute  that  medioc 
rity  ever  pays  to  genius.  The  small  grocer  folk 
and  their  kind  about  Fordham,  as  well  as 
some  more  pretentious  respectabilities,  looked 
askance  at  the  poor  poet  struggling  with  his 
burden  and  his  vision;  fighting  his  unequal  bat 
tle  with  fate  and  fortune.  In  much  the  same 
way,  with  a  scarcely  veiled  contempt  and  aver 
sion,  he  was  regarded  by  the  successful  literary 
cliques  of  the  day,  especially  the  "New  England 
School"  of  his  detestation — to  which  it  must 
be  allowed  he  offered  provocation  enough  by 
his  critical  disparagements.*  It  is  to  be  noted 
that  Mr.  W.  D.  Howells,  the  leading  inheritor 
of  their  tradition,  though  a  critic  of  unusual 
breadth  and  sympathy,  has  a  poor  notion  of 
Poe.  In  short,  our  poet  was  that  scandal  and 
contradiction  in  his  own  day — a  true  genius; 
and  he  remains  an  enigma  to  ours. 

But  I  do  not  think  he  was  any  more  a  psycho 
path  or  a  madman  than — bless  me ! — Dr.  Wil 
liam  Lee  Howard  himself — though  I  will  grant 

*  Emerson  called  him  the  "jingle  man". 


46  AN  ATTIC  DREAMER 

that,  as  we  are  now  saying,  several  things  got 
constantly  on  his  nerves.    And  among  these  : 

Chronic  poverty. 
Rejection  of  his  literary  claims. 
Success  of  his  inferiors. 
The  insolence  of  publishers. 
Humiliation  of  spirit. 

And — I  must  grant  it — the  agony  induced 
by  his  occasional  excesses  and  his  forfeiture  of 
self-respect. 

I  do  not  argue  that  the  misfortunes  prove  the 
genius,  even  though  in  Poe's  case  they  seem  to 
have  been  the  penalty  annexed  to  his  extraordi 
nary  gifts — the  curse  of  the  malignant  Fairy. 
But  with  due  respect  to  the  learned  authority 
several  times  referred  to,  and  in  spite  of  all 
the  Bedlam  science  in  the  world,  I  hold  to  my 
faith  that  true  genius  is  not  the  negation,  but 
the  affirmation  of  sanity. 

As  for  the  literary  smugs,  to  whom  Poe  is 
still  anathema  because  he  was  a  genius  and  also 
a  scandal,  according  to  their  moral  code :  is  it 
not  enough,  gentlemen,  that  you  are  prosper 
ous,  and  respectable — and  utterly  unlike  Poe? 


THE  POE  LEGEND  47 

VI 

NEXT  to  the  subject  of  Poe's  drinking 
habits,  which  you  have  to  follow  like  a 
strong  breath  through  every  account  of  him 
that  I  have  seen — his  faithful  biographers  give 
most  attention  to  his  borrowings.  Hence  the 
typical  Poe  biography  reads,  as  I  have  already 
suggested,  like  an  indictment. 

Now,  the  fact  is,  poor  Poe  was  as  bad  a  bor 
rower  as  he  was  a  drinker — he  meant  well,  and 
heaven  knows  he  tried  hard  enough  in  each 
capacity,  but  neither  part  fitted  him,  and  in 
both  he  failed  to  rise  to  the  dignity  of  the 
artist.  He  was  truly  a  bum  borrower  (this  is 
not  a  literary  essay).  He  never  executed  a 
"touch"  with  grace  or  finesse.  Instead  of  going 
to  his  friends  with  endearing  assurance,  smiling 
like  a  May-day  at  the  honor  and  pleasure  he  de 
signed  them,  he  put  on  his  hat  with  the  deep 
black  band  and  went  like  an  undertaker  to  con 
duct  his  own  funeral.  No  wonder  they  threw 
him  down !  But  in  truth  he  rarely  had  the  cour 
age  to  face  his  man,  and  so  he  sent  the  poor 
devoted  Mrs.  Clemm — that  paragon  of  moth 
ers-in-law  for  a  poet ! — or  else  weakly  relied  on 
his  powers  of  literary  persuasion  and  courted 


48  AN  ATTIC  DREAMER 

certain  refusal  by  penning  his  modest  request. 
Call  this  man  a  borrower!  Why,  he  was  a 
parody  of  Charles  Lamb's  idea  that  your  true 
borrower — like  Alcibiades  or  Brinsley  Sheri 
dan — belongs  to  a  superior  kind  of  humanity, 
the  Great  Race — born  to  rule  the  rest.  He 
never  realized  the  greatness  of  the  Borrowing 
Profession — never  rose  to  it,  to  take  a  meta 
phor  from  the  stage,  but  remained  a  mumping, 
fearful,  calamity-inviting,  graceless  and  hope 
less,  make-believe  borrower  to  the  last. 

For  this  his  biographers  are  ashamed  of  him, 
as  for  his  sprees,  and  this  also  has  passed  into 
the  popular  legend  concerning  Poe,  of  which 
the  obscure  dramatist  (already  referred  to) 
has  availed  himself.  Neither  the  unknown 
dramatist  nor  his  biographers  have  deemed  it 
worth  while  to  explain  this  phase  of  Poe's  life 
— these  are  the  facts  and  here  are  the  letters 
to  Kennedy,  Griswold,  White,  Thomas,  Gra 
ham,  Clarke,  Simms,  Willis,  et  al.  Can  you 
make  anything  else  of  them?  And  another 
count  of  the  indictment  in  re  Edgar  Allan  Poe 
is  proven. 

I  am  not  writing  a  literary  essay,  but  I  must 
again  lay  stress  on  one  thing,  in  extenuation  of 
Poe's  inveterate  offence  of  borrowing  from  his 


THE  POE  LEGEND  49 

friends — he  did  it  very  badly,  so  badly  that  this 
fact  alone  should  excuse  him  in  the  eyes  of  the 
charitable.  Let  us  also  try  to  bear  in  mind 
that  the  most  he  could  earn,  after  giving  oath- 
bound  guarantees  as  to  sobriety,  etc.,  was  Ten 
Dollars  a  week — this  was  the  sum  for  which 
Burton  (the  tragic  comedian)  hired  him,  and 
from  which  in  a  very  short  time  the  same  Bur 
ton  ruthlessly  separated  him.  The  joke  being 
that  this  same  fat-headed  Burton  carried  on  the 
affair  with  a  high  show  of  regard  for  the  dig 
nity  of  the  Literary  Profession,  outraged  by 
Poe !  Ten  dollars  a  week !  Why,  do  you  know 
that  our  most  popular  author,  Mr.  Success  G. 
Smith,  is  believed  to  earn  about  fifty  thousand 
a  year  by  his  pen?  That  Mr.  Calcium  Givem- 
fitts,  the  fearless  exposer  of  corruption  in  high 
places,  is  worrying  along  on  a  beggarly  stipend 
of,  say,  thirty-five  thousand?  That  the  famous 
society  novelist,  Mrs.  Tuxedo  Smith-Jones, 
barely  contrives  to  make  ends  meet  on  the  same 
hard  terms;  and  that  a  score  of  others  might 
be  named  whose  incomes  do  not  fall  below 
twenty-five  thousand?  .  .  . 

But,  you  say,  does  each  and  every  one  of 
these  gifted  and  fortunate  individuals  make  lit 
erature  in  the  sense  that  Poe  made  it?  My 


50  AN  ATTIC  DREAMER 

dear  sir,  these  persons  are  all  my  intimate 
friends;  I  admire  their  works  next  to  my  own, 
though  I  confess  I  do  not  read  them  so  often. 
Therefore,  to  single  out  one  of  these  distin 
guished  and  successful  authors  for  praise  would 
be  invidious;  and,  besides — I  am  not  writing  a 
literary  essay. 


VII 


THAT  old,  old  story  of  genius  struggling 
with  want,  and  overborne  by  cruel  neces 
sity,  hampered  too  by  its  weaknesses,  how  piti 
ful  though  trite  it  is!  The  other  day  I  went 
into  the  great  Public  Library  of  New  York,  in 
order  to  verify  some  data  for  this  paper.  Un 
der  the  glass  cases  displaying  rare  books  and 
autograph  letters,  I  saw  one  or  two  exhibits 
which  quite  made  me  forget  the  object  of  my 
visit.  I  looked  at  them  a  long  time,  and  I 
would  like  you  to  understand  and  share  the 
feeling  which  they  evoked  in  me. 

There  was,  first  of  all,  a  copy  of  the  First 
Edition  of  Poe's  "Murders  in  the  Rue  Mor 
gue"  and  "The  Man  That  Was  Used  Up", 
published  by  Graham  of  Philadelphia;  a  thin 
book,  or  rather  pamphlet,  in  gray  covers.  An 


THE  POE  LEGEND  51 

inscription  stated  that  it  was  a  very  rare  copy, 
only  one  other  of  this  edition  being  known  to 
exist,  and  that  it  had  brought  at  auction  in 
1909,  the  sum  of  thirty-eight  hundred  dollars; 
the  highest  price  yet  paid  for  any  book  printed 
in  America.  Thirty-eight  hundred  dollars!— 
an  amount  that  would  have  seemed  a  fortune 
to  Poe  and  would  have  secured  to  his  later 
years  the  independence  of  which  he  vainly 
dreamed  to  the  last — perhaps  added  to  his  days 
and  enabled  him  to  leave  us  a  richer  literary 
legacy.  And  why  was  this  great  sum  paid 
recently  for  a  cheap  paper-covered  book  printed 
away  back  in  1843,  seeing  that  we  possess  the 
stories  in  numerous  better  editions?  Why  but 
because  the  rich  collector  prized  and  coveted 
that  book  for  its  rarity  as  one  of  the  indubitable 
proofs  of  Poe's  pilgrimage — let  me  say  with 
out  irreverence,  a  thorn  from  his  crown,  a  stone 
from  his  Calvary.  Nay,  has  not  the  world,  in 
various  ways,  always  paid  the  highest  price  for 
the  relics  of  the  martyr?  How  else  shall  we 
surely  know  the  elect  ones  who  suffered  and 
travailed  in  order  that  their  great  thoughts 
might  be  born? 

I  turned  from  this  to  an  autograph  letter  of 
one  of  the  most   famous   and  unfortunate  of 


52  AN  ATTIC  DREAMER 

poets,  whose  destiny  is  not  without  tragic  like 
ness  to  that  of  Poe.  It  bore  date  March  31, 
1788,  and  read  in  part  as  follows: 

"I  am  so  harassed  with  care  and  anxiety 
about  this  farming  project  of  mine  that  my 
Muse  has  degenerated  into  the  veriest  prose 
wench  that  ever  picked  cinders  or  followed  a 
tinker.  ...  At  present  the  world  sits  such 
a  load  on  my  mind  that  it  has  effaced  almost 
every  trace  of  the  image  of  God  in  me." 

The  letter  is  signed  Robert  Burns. 

In  the  same  case  I  saw  a  letter  of  Poe's,  ad 
dressed  to  one  E.  A.  Duycinck,  Esq.,  and  bear 
ing  date  November  13,  1845.  I*  ran  as  Al 
lows: 

"My  dear  Mr.  Duycinck: 

I  am  still  dreadfully  unwell  and  fear  I  shall 
be  very  seriously  ill.  I  have  resolved  to  give 
up  the  'Broadway  Journal'  and  retire  to  the 
country  for  six  months  or  perhaps  a  year,  as 
the  sole  means  of  regaining  my  health  and 
spirits.  Is  it  not  possible  that  yourself,  or  Mr. 
Mathews,  might  give  me  a  trifle  for  my  inter 
est  in  the  paper?  Or  if  this  cannot  be  effected, 
might  I  venture  to  ask  you  for  an  advance  of 
$50  on  the  faith  of  the  American  Parnassus, 
which  I  will  finish  as  soon  as  possible?  If  you 
would  oblige  me  in  this  manner,  I  would  feel 
myself  under  the  deepest  obligation." 


THE  POE  LEGEND  53 

The  writer  ends  by  requesting  that  reply  be 
sent  by  bearer — another  proof  of  Poe's  de 
ficiency  in  the  borrowing  craft,  since  only  a 
novice  or  a  bungler  would  thus  attempt  to  force 
a  man's  hand.  Loans  are  very  shy  toward 
those  who  seem  to  need  them  so  badly. 

This  letter  so  strangely  companioning  that 
of  Burns,  which  it  resembles  in  its  burden  of 
complaint  and  the  cry  of  despair  it  voices,  is 
stated  to  be  from  the  Duycinck  collection.  I 
am  inclined  to  suspect  that  the  requested  fifty 
was  never  added  to  the  Poe  collection. 

By  the  way,  there  was  another  letter  in  the 
case,  from  a  great  and  famous  and  successful 
contemporary  of  Poe,  whose  ordered  and  happy 
life  was  in  every  respect  a  contrast  to  his.  I 
wonder  why,  under  the  circumstances,  it  gave 
me  no  thrill  to  read  those  lines  penned  by  the 
hand  of  Longfellow: — verily  unto  him  that 
hath  shall  not  always  be  given ! 

VIII 

A  LAST  word  as  to  Poe's  enemies — those 
whom  he  made  for  himself  and  those 
who  were  called  into  being  by  his  literary  tri 
umphs.    Here  again  I  think  Poe  failed  to  hit  it 


54  AN  ATTIC  DREAMER 

off,  as  he  might  have  done.  Though  he  labored 
at  the  gentle  art  of  making  enemies  with  much 
diligence,  he  never  utilized  them  with  brilliant 
success  in  a  literary  way  (most  of  the  criticism 
which  procured  him  his  enemies  is  hack-writing, 
not  literature).  For  example,  he  did  not  make 
his  enemies  serve  both  his  wit  and  reputation, 
as  Heine  so  well  knew  how  to  do.  The  latter 
turned  his  foes  into  copy;  throughout  his  life 
they  were  his  chief  literary  asset,  and  I  have 
no  doubt  that  he  almost  loved  them  for  the  lit 
erature  they  enabled  him  to  make.  This  is  the 
most  exquisite  revenge  upon  a  literary  rival — 
to  make  him  your  pot-boiler  and  bread-winner 
as  well  as  a  feeder  to  your  fame  and  glory.  It 
was  beyond  Poe,  and,  therefore,  the  chronicle 
of  his  grudges  has  for  us  hardly  more  piquancy 
than  the  tale  of  his  borrowings. 

But  his  biographers  weary  us  with  it,  as  if 
the  matter  were  of  real  importance.  Nonsense ! 
Our  literary  manners  are  doubtless  improved 
since  Poe's  day;  the  brethren  are  surely  not  so 
hungry,  and  there  is  more  fodder  to  go  round 
(I  have  said  this  is  not  a  literary  effort).  Still 
the  civility  is  rather  assumed  than  real;  there 
is  much  spiteful  kicking  of  shins  under  the 
table;  and  private  lampoons  take  the  place  of 


THE  POE  LEGEND  55 

the  old  public  personalities.  I  grant  that  au 
thors  are  more  generous  in  their  attitude  to 
ward  one  another  than  formerly,  and  the  fact 
cannot  be  disputed  that  they  are  fervently  sin 
cere  in  their  praise  of — the  dead  ones! 

No,  we  shall  not  condemn  Poe  for  the  ene 
mies  he  made.  The  printed  word  breeds  hos 
tility  and  aversion  that  the  writer  wots  not  of 
— yea,  his  dearest  friends,  scanning  his  page 
with  jealous  eye,  shall  take  rancor  from  his 
most  guileless  words  and  cherish  it  in  their 
bosoms  against  him.  Write,  and  your  friends 
will  love  you  till  they  hate  you;  for  there  is  no 
fear  and  jealousy  in  the  world  like  those  that 
lurk  in  the  printed  word.  Write  then,  write 
deeply  enough,  down  to  the  truth  of  your  own 
soul,  below  the  shams  of  phrase  and  convention, 
below  your  insincerities  of  self — and  you  shall 
have  enemies  to  your  heart's  desire.  The  man 
who  could  print  much  and  still  make  no  ene 
mies,*  has  never  yet  appeared  on  this  planet. 

*  One  W.  C.  Brownell,  writing  in  "Scribner's  Magazine," 
evinces  a  kind  of  rage  that  a  man  so  weak,  so  faulty  and 
ill-governed,  an  artist  so  capricious,  slight  and  motiveless, 
should  have  wrought  himself  into  the  unforgetting  heart  of 
humanity.  Whatever  may  be  the  explanation,  we  know  that 
is  the  offence  which  a  certain  brand  of  critics  will  never 
forgive  Poe.  Drunken,  debauched  and  devil-driven,  per 
haps  the  man  often  was;  but  the  rare  Poet  whom  the  world 
will  ever  cherish  was  brother  to  Israfel,  and  not  less  divine. 


56  AN  ATTIC  DREAMER 

Certainly  it  was  not  he  who  struggled  desper 
ately  for  the  poorest  living  in  and  about  New 
York  some  seventy-odd  years  ago;  who  saw  his 
young  wife  die  in  want  and  misery,  with  the 
horror  of  officious  charity  at  the  door;  who  not 
long  afterwards,  and  in  a  kindly  dream  (as  I 
must  think  it)  left  all  this  coil  of  trouble  and 
sorrow  behind  him,  bequeathing  to  immortality 
the  fame  of  Edgar  Allan  Poe. 


Ill 

IN    RE    COLONEL   INGERSOLL  * 

IN  many  States  of  the  Union  there  are  laws 
on  the  statute  books  that  penalize  liberty 
of  thought  and  speech. 

These  laws  are  mostly  derived  from  Colonial 
times  and  the  barbarous  intolerance  of  the  Old 
World.  They  are  an  organic  link  between  us 
and  the  British  tyranny  from  which  our  patriot 
fathers  appealed  to  the  sword.  No  statesman 
or  legislator  has  the  courage  to  demand  that 
they  be  repealed  or  annulled.  It  is  supposed 
that  the  moral  sense  of  the  people  is  somehow 
concerned  in  their  being  kept  alive — or  at  least 
in  a  state  of  suspended  animation  and  potential 
menace. 

*In  this  paper  I  treat  Ingersoll  romantically  (as  in  keep 
ing  with  the  spirit  of  my  book),  as  a  personality  and  a  man 
of  literary  as  well  as  oratorical  gifts,  certainly  an  American 
Notable — if  we  have  ever  produced  one. 

I  dare  not  slight  his  peculiar  religious  views,  but  I  have 
touched  the  polemic  side  lightly  and  mainly  to  the  end  of 
bringing  into  relief  the  Man  of  Genius  and  the  Humani 
tarian.  Surely  it  is  hardly  warrantable  to  speak  or  think 
of  the  Colonel  as  a  spent  influence;  his  books  sell  always,  his 
charm  as  a  Personality,  as  an  Orator  and  a  Writer  is  saving 
him  in  spite  of  his — I  grant — unpopular  agnosticism.  The 
great  glowing  heart  of  the  man  redeems  his  cold  infidelity. 

57 


58  AN  ATTIC  DREAMER 

So  these  cruel  old  laws  are  not  disturbed  by 
pious  legislators,  who  would  make  no  bones  at 
all  of  trading  in  public  franchises,  or  of  acting 
on  any  proposition  with  the  "immoral  major 
ity".  Hypocrisy  and  fraud  respect  in  these 
ancient  statutes  the  "wisdom"  of  our  ancestors, 
and  still  affect  to  see  in  them  a  safeguard  for 
religion.  Hypocrisy  and  fraud  unite  to  keep 
them  on  the  law-books  where  they  lie,  asleep 
it  may  be,  but  ready-fanged  and  poisoned 
should  they  be  evoked  at  any  time  to  do  their 
ancient  office.  Many  people  would  be  glad  to 
have  these  infamous  laws  erased  from  the 
statute-books,  but  they  do  nothing  about  it. 
The  public  sense  of  hypocrisy  stands  in  the  way. 
Legislators  fear  the  protest  of  what  is  called 
"organized  religion".  Liberty  continues  to  be 
disgraced  in  the  house  of  her  friends. 

New  Jersey  has  laws  of  this  kind.  Some 
thing  over  three  decades  ago  one  of  them  was 
waked  from  its  long  sleep  in  order  to  punish  a 
man  who  had  exercised  the  right  of  free  speech. 
By  a  strange  contradiction — the  result  of  yok 
ing  the  Era  of  Liberty  with  the  Age  of  Oppres 
sion — this  right  of  free  speech  is  guaranteed  in 
the  Constitution  of  New  Jersey,  under  which 
the  old  cruel  Colonial  law  is  allowed  to  operate. 


IN  RE  COLONEL  INGERSOLL     59 

That  is  to  say,  the  Constitution  both  guarantees 
and  penalizes  the  same  privilege — a  beautiful 
example  of  consistency  arising  from  respect  for 
the  "wisdom  of  our  ancestors". 

The  trial  attracted  universal  attention  be 
cause  the  bravest  and  ablest  advocate  of  free 
speech  in  our  time  appeared  for  the  defence. 
Outside  of  the  great  principle  involved,  there 
was  little  in  the  case  to  engage  the  interest  or 
sympathies  of  Colonel  Ingersoll.  The  defend 
ant  was  an  obscure  ex-minister  named  Reynolds, 
who  had  gone  over  to  infidelity.  Religion,  it 
must  be  granted,  lost  less  than  Reynolds,  who 
seems  to  have  been  unable  to  maintain  himself 
as  a  preacher  of  liberal  doctrine.  No  doubt 
many  ministers  have  profited  by  his  example 
and  stayed  where  they  were — the  free  thought 
standard  of  ability  is  perhaps  not  much  lower 
than  the  evangelical.  This  Reynolds  printed 
and  circulated  some  literature  about  the  Bible. 
It  was  merely  puerile  and  foolish,  but  some 
people  who  looked  upon  Reynolds  as  a  nuisance 
(which  I  fear  he  was)  and  wanted  to  punish 
him,  thought  it  a  good  case  for  the  old  Colonial 
statute  against  blasphemy.  Accordingly  they 
invoked  it,  and  hence  the  trial. 

The  result  of  this  now  famous  trial  for  bias- 


60  AN  ATTIC  DREAMER 

phemy  proves  that  a  law  on  the  statute-book, 
no  matter  how  antiquated,  bigoted  and  absurd 
— and  this  was  all  three  in  the  superlative  de 
gree — outweighs  with  a  jury  the  utmost  logic 
and  eloquence  of  the  ablest  advocate.  Such  is 
the  superstition  of  law,  and  such  is  our  enlight 
ened  wisdom  in  jealously  preserving  these  be 
quests  from  the  blind  and  tyrannous  bigotry  of 
the  Old  World. 

We  need  not  condemn  the  twelve  Jersey  jury 
men  for  sinning  against  light — darkness  was 
there  in  the  law  and  demanded  judgment  at 
their  hands.  Of  course,  they  enjoyed  the  Colo 
nel's  eloquence;  his  marvellous  pleading;  his 
logic  that  built  up  and  buttressed  a  whole  struc 
ture  of  argument,  while  his  oratory  ravished 
them;  his  flashes  of  wit  that  disarmed  every 
prejudice;  his  persuasive  power  that  almost 
convinced  them  they  were  free  men  with  no 
slightest  obligation  to  the  servile  past.  Yes,  it 
must  have  been  like  a  wonderful  play  to  these 
simple  Jerseymen.  No  doubt  they  congratu 
lated  themselves  that  they  were  privileged 
spectators,  seeing  and  hearing  it  for  nothing; 
and  they  talked  or  will  talk  of  it  to  their  dying 
day.  I  think  myself  it  was  one  of  the  most 
effective  and  powerful  addresses  ever  made  to  a 


IN  RE  COLONEL  INGERSOLL     61 

jury — one  of  the  finest  appeals  ever  uttered  in 
behalf  of  liberty — and  it  will  be  honored  as  it 
deserves  when  this  Nation  shall  be  truly  free. 

I  daresay  some  of  these  Jerseymen  were 
wavering  when  the  Colonel  sat  down  at  last — 
how  could  they  help  it?  But  the  prosecutor 
reminded  them  (without  any  eloquence)  of 
their  obligations  to  city,  county  and  State. 
Above  all,  there  is  the  Law — what  are  you 
going  to  do  about  that,  gentlemen?  No  mat 
ter  whether  it  was  passed  some  two  hundred 
years  ago  and  carried  over  from  Oppression  to 
Liberty — no  matter  whether  it  was  made  for  a 
state  of  civilization  or  barbarism,  if  you 
please,  which  we  have  outgrown — there  it 
stands,  the  Law  which  safeguards  the  Church 
and  the  Home — the  law  which  you  are  sworn 
to  maintain. 

Something  like  this,  no  doubt,  the  prosecutor 
must  have  said,  but  his  remarks  were  few — he 
did  not  care  to  invite  a  comparison.  Besides, 
he  knew  his  jurymen. 

Colonel  Ingersoll  had  made  a  speech  that  will 
live  forever. 

He  lost  his  case. 

New  Jersey  lost  an  opportunity. 


62  AN  ATTIC  DREAMER 

ii 

A  GREAT  many  people  contend  that  we 
now  enjoy  in  this  country  as  much  liberty 
(or  toleration)  as  is  good  for  us.  To  aim  at 
the  full  measure  which  Colonel  Ingersoll  advo 
cated  is,  in  the  opinion  of  these  people,  to  ad 
vance  the  standard  of  Anarchy. 

By  this  reasoning  a  man  who  is  only  half  or 
three-quarters  well  is  better  off  than  one  in  per 
fect  health. 

Complete  freedom  is  complete  well-being. 

Colonel  Ingersoll  was  the  foremost  cham 
pion  in  our  time  of  the  rights  of  the  liberal 
spirit. 

It  has  been  urged  that  he  spent  the  best  part 
of  his  life  threshing  out  old  theological  straw, 
fighting  battles  that  had  been  thoroughly  fought 
out  long  before  his  day.  Singularly  enough, 
this  position  is  usually  taken  by  persons  attached 
to  the  theological  system  against  which  Inger 
soll  waged  a  truceless  war.  There  may  be  some 
virtue  in  the  argument,  but  surely  it  is  not  that 
of  consistency. 

Let  us  be  fair.  Ingersoll  was  no  mere  echo 
and  imitator  of  the  great  liberals  who  pre 
ceded  him.  He  had  a  message  of  his  own  to 


IN  RE  COLONEL  INGERSOLL     63 

his  own  generation.  He  was  the  best- 
equipped,  most  formidable  and  persistent  advo 
cate  of  the  liberal  principle  which  this  country, 
at  least,  has  ever  known;  and  it  is  extremely 
doubtful  if  his  equal  as  a  popular  propagan 
dist  was  to  be  found  anywhere. 

He  took  new  ground.  He  carried  the  flag 
farther  than  any  of  his  predecessors.  He 
fought  without  compromise,  neither  seeking 
nor  giving  quarter.  He  believed  in  the  sacred- 
ness  of  his  cause — the  holy  cause  of  liberty. 
His  was  no  tepid  devotion,  no  Laodicean  fer 
vor,  no  timid  acquiescence  dictated  by  reason 
and  half  denied  by  fear. 

That  uncertain  allegiance  of  the  soul  which 
Macaulay  describes  as  the  "paradise  of  cold 
hearts",  was  not  for  him.  The  temper  of  his 
zeal  for  liberty  can  be  likened  only  to  a  con 
suming  flame;  it  burned  with  ever-increasing 
ardor  through  all  the  years  of  his  long  life; 
it  was  active  up  to  the  very  moment  when  jeal 
ous  Death  touched  his  eloquent  lips  with  silence. 

It  was  a  grand  passion,  and,  like  every  grand 
passion,  it  had  grand  results. 

Heine  has  said  that  no  man  becomes  greatly 
famous  without  passion;  that  it  is  the  mark  by 


64  AN  ATTIC  DREAMER 

which  we  know  the  inspired  man  from  the  mere 
servant  or  spectator  of  events. 

I  see  this  mark  in  Abraham  Lincoln — in  the 
Gettysburg  speech,  in  the  Proclamation,  and 
some  of  the  Messages.  The  divine  passion 
that  announces  a  man  with  a  mission  and  a 
destiny  beyond  his  fellows. 

I  see  this  mark  in  Robert  G.  Ingersoll.  I 
have  lately  read  the  greater  part  of  his  work — 
lectures,  speeches,  controversial  writings — and 
the  cumulative  sense  I  take  from  it  is  that  of 
wonder  at  the  passion  of  the  man.  Perhaps  it 
never  found  better,  never  attained  higher,  ex 
pression  than  in  these  words : 

"I  plead  for  light,  for  air,  for  opportunity. 
I  plead  for  individual  independence.  I  plead 
for  the  rights  of  labor  and  of  thought.  I  plead 
for  a  chainless  future.  Let  the  ghosts  go — 
justice  remains.  Let  them  disappear — men 
and  women  and  children  are  left.  Let  the  mon 
sters  fade  away — the  world  is  here  with  its 
hills  and  seas  and  plains,  with  its  seasons  of 
smiles  and  frowns,  its  spring  of  leaf  and  bud, 
its  summer  of  shade  and  flower  and  murmuring 
stream,  its  autumn  with  the  laden  boughs,  when 
the  withered  banners  of  the  corn  are  still  and 
gathered  fields  are  growing  strangely  wan; 
while  death,  poetic  death,  with  hands  that  color 


IN  RE  COLONEL  INGERSOLL     65 

what  they  touch,  weaves  in  the  autumn  wood 
her  tapestries  of  gold  and  brown. 

"The  world  remains  with  its  winters  and 
homes  and  fire-sides,  where  grow  and  bloom  the 
virtues  of  our  race.  Let  the  ghosts  go — we 
will  worship  them  no  more. 

"Man  is  greater  than  these  phantoms. 
Humanity  is  grander  than  all  the  creeds,  than 
all  the  books.  Humanity  is  the  great  sea,  and 
these  creeds,  and  books,  and  religions  are  but 
the  waves  of  a  day.  Humanity  is  the  sky,  and 
these  religions  and  dogmas  and  theories  are  but 
the  mists  and  clouds  changing  continually,  des 
tined  finally  to  melt  away. 

"That  which  is  founded  on  slavery,  and  fear, 
and  ignorance  cannot  endure." 


Ill 

IT  IS  agreed  by  the  opponents  of  Colonel 
Ingersoll  that  he  was  without  influence  upon 
the  intelligent  thought  of  his  time — by  which 
intelligent  thought  they  perhaps  mean  to  com 
pliment  themselves ! 

If  this  be  true,  we  lack  an  explanation  of  the 
fact  that  his  books  and  lectures  are  selling  by 
the  thousands,  both  in  this  country  and  in  Eng 
land.  If  the  testimony  of  the  bookstalls 
amounts  to  anything,  then  the  great  Agnostic 


66  AN  ATTIC  DREAMER 

did  not  cast  his  "seed  of  perdition"  upon  barren 
ground.  Whether  for  right  or  wrong,  whether 
for  good  or  evil,  his  word  is  marching  on. 

From  the  Silence  that  comes  to  all  men  he 
has  gained  a  higher  claim  upon  our  attention, 
a  more  valid  right  to  plead.  We  remember 
that  he  was  faithful  unto  death.  With  the 
cessation  of  that  defiant  personality,  about 
which  so  long  raged  the  din  of  controversy,  men 
have  leave  to  study  his  best  thought  in  the  dry 
light  of  reason.  He  that  is  dead  overcometh. 

During  his  life  Colonel  Ingersoll  gave  and 
took  many  hard  blows — that  is,  he  fought  his 
adversaries  with  the  weapons  of  their  choice. 

Often  it  seemed  to  those  who  were  in  sym 
pathy  with  much  that  he  said,  with  much  that 
he  contended  for,  that  he  might  have  used 
softer  words;  that  he  might  have  dealt  less  bru 
tally  with  inherited  beliefs  and  prejudices;  in 
short,  that  he  might  have  employed  rosewater 
instead  of  vitriol. 

The  answer  to  this  is,  Colonel  Ingersoll 
fought  without  compromise.  From  his  first 
public  utterance  he  made  his  position  plain. 
He  never  faltered,  shuffled  or  equivocated.  He 
knew  that  mutual  compliments  cloud  the  issue; 
he  asked  none,  gave  none. 


IN  RE  COLONEL  INGERSOLL     67 

But  the  fact  really  is,  he  was  far  kinder  and 
more  charitable  toward  his  adversaries  than 
they  were  toward  him.  Besides,  they  had  a 
great  advantage  in  unkindness :  they  were  al 
ways  sending  him  to  their  Hell — and  he  had  no 
Hell  to  send  them  to ! 

However,  I  do  not  believe  that  Colonel  In- 
gersoll  would  have  fared  much  better  at  the 
hands  of  the  clergy  had  he,  while  professing 
infidelity,  made  his  declaration  of  unfaith  in 
the  mildest  and  most  colorless  terms.  Euphe 
mism  would  not  have  saved  the  Colonel,  and 
this  he  well  knew,  having  one  of  the  most  logi 
cal  minds  in  the  world. 

No  infidel  was  ever  so  tender  toward  the 
sensibilities  of  the  orthodox  as  Ernest  Renan, 
who,  though  he  left  the  altar,  yet  (as  Ingersoll 
shrewdly  said)  carried  the  incense  a  great  part 
of  his  journey  with  him. 

Renan's  attitude  toward  the  old  Faith  which 
he  had  renounced  was  that  of  a  sentimental 
iconoclast — but  an  iconoclast,  for  all  that.  He 
wrote  his  "Life  of  Jesus"  with  a  kind  of  pious 
infidelity,  coloring  it  with  such  euphemism,  han 
dling  it  with  such  precaution,  that  some  persons 
took  it  for  an  orthodox  account.  He  discloses 
his  motive  in  the  prefaces,  but  almost  suppresses 


68  AN  ATTIC  DREAMER 

it  in  the  body  of  the  book.  His  criticism  is  the 
best  in  the  world,  his  romance  no  better  than 
Chateaubriand's — a  woman  said  that  the  "Life 
of  Jesus"  read  as  if  it  were  going  to  end  with 
a  marriage !  In  my  poor  opinion,  one  or  two 
chapters  of  Renan's  "Recollections"  are  worth 
"The  Life  of  Jesus". 

Renan  loved  the  grand  old  Church  which 
had  educated  him,  as  his  "dearest  foe".  His 
mind  had  been  formed  by  contact  with  her  at  a 
hundred  points.  The  poetry  of  her  ritual,  the 
pomp  of  her  service,  the  grandeur  of  her  titles, 
the  majesty  of  her  spiritual  dominion,  never 
quite  lost  their  power  to  impress  his  soul — even 
when  he  was  prophesying  that  the  days  of  her 
greatness  were  numbered.  He  spoke  of  the 
clergy  always  with  respect,  often  with  compli 
ment,  declaring  in  his  latest  book  that  he  had 
never  known  a  bad  priest.  He  abhorred  all 
coarseness,  all  invective,  all  vulgarity,  all  vio 
lence.  Nothing  common,  low  or  brutal  was 
ever  suffered  to  mar  the  translucent  mirror  of 
his  perfect  style.  In  theory  a  democrat,  he  had 
the  mental  manners  which  are  fostered  by  a 
clerical  aristocracy.  Every  faculty  of  his  mind 
paid  homage  to  the  Church,  except  his  reason. 
Renan  never  lost  his  feeling  of  reverence  for 


IN  RE  COLONEL  INGERSOLL     69 

the  sacred  mysteries  of  the  Faith  in  which  his 
youth  was  cradled — but  he  wrote  the  uPrayer 
on  the  Acropolis".  He  rebuked  Strauss  and 
Feuerbach  for  the  ruthless  way  in  which  they 
attacked  the  Christian  legend — he  pleaded  for 
tenderness  in  demolishing  a  religion  which  had 
been  the  hope  of  the  world.  He  confessed  that 
he  never  could  wholly  put  off  the  cassock,  and 
he  seemed  like  an  unfrocked  bishop  on  the 
heights  of  science.  If  ever  an  infidel  deserved 
chanty  at  the  hands  of  the  clergy,  that  infidel 
was  Renan. 

Did  he  get  it?  The  answer  is,  that  not  even 
Voltaire  was  assailed  with  a  greater  virulence 
of  ecclesiastical  rancor — the  most  infernal  mal 
ice  ever  planted  in  the  heart  of  man.* 

Alas,  the  ecclesiastical  spirit  too  often  seems 
the  same  in  all  ages !  It  crucified  Jesus  of 
Nazareth,  it  burned  Giordano  Bruno.  When 
Servetus  writhed  at  the  stake  in  his  death 
agony,  Calvin,  his  murderer,  drew  nearer, 
saluted  him  as  the  son  of  the  Devil  and  piously 
committed  his  soul  to  Hell. 

*This  remark  admits  of  some  notable  exceptions.  Father 
William  Barry,  an  eminent  English  writer,  has  done  a  fair 
and  justly  appreciative  Life  of  Renan  (Scribner's)  while 
making  no  concession  to  his  agnostic  views.  Several  priests 
who  knew  Renan  in  his  youth  or  during  his  novitiate  have 
written  of  him  with  respect  and  humane  feeling. 


70  AN  ATTIC  DREAMER 

Renan  was  cursed  and  slandered  with  that 
special  ingenuity  which  has  always  belonged  to 
the  custodians  of  Divine  Truth,  and  the  priests 
whom  he  was  in  the  habit  of  complimenting, 
with  great  fervor  of  unanimity  saluted  him  as 
the  Anti-Christ ! 

Colonel  Ingersoll's  reasoning  was  good. 
Compliments  are  vain  in  an  irreconcilable  con 
flict. 

IV 

MOST  speeches  are  not  literature — they 
do  not  read  as  they  were  heard,  as  they 
were  spoken.  Lacking  the  living  voice,  the 
speaking  eye,  the  personality  from  which  they 
derived  their  force,  they  seem  cold,  inanimate, 
without  that  vital  principle  which  is  the  product 
of  genius  and  art. 

The  orator's  triumphs  are  usually  short-lived, 
like  those  of  an  actor.  They  are  the  children 
of  the  time,  not  of  the  eternities. 

But  there  are  exceptions,  though  rare,  and 
among  these  we  may  reckon  the  best  speeches 
of  Colonel  Ingersoll. 

Our  American  literature  has  nothing  better 
of  their  kind  than  the  Decoration  Day  Ora 
tion,  the  lectures  on  Ghosts,  Orthodoxy,  Super- 


IN  RE  COLONEL  INGERSOLL     71 

stition,  Individuality,  Liberty  for  Man,  Woman 
and  Child,  Shakespeare,  Voltaire,  Humboldt, 
Thomas  Paine,  and  some  others. 

These  are  so  vital,  so  charged  with  intellec 
tual  power,  so  instinct  with  a  passionate  love 
of  truth  and  justice,  so  eloquent  and  logical, 
so  clear  and  convincing — above  all,  so  readable 
— that  they  can  afford  to  dispense  with  the 
living  voice — that  is,  they  are,  in  a  true  sense, 
literature. 

I  doubt  if  this  enviable  distinction  belongs 
in  equal  measure  to  the  work  of  any  other 
American  orator. 

The  explanation  is,  that  Colonel  Ingersoll 
was  an  artist  as  well  as  an  orator:  he  knew 
that  without  the  preserving  touch  of  art,  the 
most  impassioned  oratory  soon  goes  back  to 
common  air.  He  was  one  of  the  great  masters 
of  our  English  speech,  never  seeking  the  ab 
struse  or  the  obsolete,  believing  that  the  tongue 
of  Shakespeare  was  adequate  to  every  neces 
sity  of  argument,  every  excursion  of  fancy, 
every  sentiment  of  poetry,  every  demand  of 
oratory. 

His  skill  in  construction,  in  antithesis,  in 
balancing  periods,  in  leading  up  to  the  lofty 
climax  which  crowned  the  whole,  was  that  of 


72  AN  ATTIC  DREAMER 

a  wizard  of  speech.  He  never  fell  short  or 
came  tardy  off — his  means  were  always  ade 
quate  to  his  ends  and  the  close  of  every  speech 
was  like  a  strain  of  music.  Rich  as  his  mind 
was,  immense  his  intellectual  resources,  un 
daunted  the  bravery  of  his  spirit,  there  was  yet 
manifest  in  all  his  work  the  wise  husbandry  of 
genius.  His  power  never  ran  to  excess;  never 
dwindled  to  impotence. 

Nature,  too,  is  economical  and  dislikes  to 
double  her  gifts:  yet  this  man  was  a  true  poet 
as  well  as  a  great  orator.  I  have  quoted  above 
a  paragraph  from  one  of  his  orations,  which 
is  the  fine  gold  of  sterling  poetry. 

Charles  Lamb  tells  us  that  "Prose  hath  her 
harmonies  no  less  than  Verse",  and  we  know 
that  the  speech  of  every  true  orator  is  rhythmic. 
It  was  eminently  so  with  Colonel  Ingersoll, 
who,  like  Dickens,  often  fell  unconsciously  into 
blank  verse.  Here  are  a  few  examples  taken 
at  random;  and  first  this  bit  of  what  we  are 
now  calling  "nature  poetry" : 

The  rise  and  set  of  sun, 

The  birth  and  death  of  day, 

The  dawns  of  silver  and  the  dusks  of  gold, 

The  wonders  of  the  rain  and  snow, 

The  shroud  of  winter  and 


IN  RE  COLONEL  INGERSOLL     73 

The  many-colored  robes  of  spring; 
The  lonely  moon  with  nightly  loss  or  gain, 
The  serpent  lightning  and  the  thunder's  voice, 
The  tempest's  fury  and  the  breath  of  morn, 
The  threat  of  storm  and  promise  of  the  bow. 

Nothing  could  excel  in  beauty  and  metrical 
grace  this  description  of  the  old  classic  myths : 

They  thrilled  the  veins  of  Spring  with  tremu 
lous  desire, 

Made    tawny    Summer's    billowed    breast    the 
throne  and  home  of  Love; 

Filled  Autumn's   arms  with  sun-kissed  grapes 
and  gathered  sheaves; 

And  pictured  Winter  as  a  weak  old  king 

Who  felt,  like  Lear,  upon  his  withered  face, 
Cordelia's  tears. 

This  on  Shakespeare,  reveals  the  poet  in  the 
orator: 

He  knew  the  thrills  and  ecstasies  of  love, 

The  savage  joys  of  hatred  and  revenge. 

He  heard  the  hiss  of  envy's  snakes 

And  watched  the  eagles  of  ambition  soar. 

There  was  no  hope  that  did  not  put  its  star 

above  his  head — 
No   fear  he   had  not   felt — 
No  joy  that  had  not  shed  its  sunshine  on  his 

face. 


74  AN  ATTIC  DREAMER 

The  critics,  I  am  aware,  make  this  kind  of 
writing  a  fault  in  prose,  but  we  should  be  glad 
to  get  real  poetry,  wherever  we  may  find  it. 
Colonel  Ingersoll's  greatest  distinction  as  a 
poet  is,  that  he  never  fails  to  interest  us: — in 
this  particular,  at  least,  the  regular  metre-mon 
gers  may  well  envy  him. 


I  LIKE  his  distinct  literary  style — the  style 
of  his  miscellanies,  of  his  controversial 
papers,  of  his  occasional  bits  of  wisdom  and 
fancy  and  criticism.  Perhaps  the  thoroughly 
human  side  of  the  man  is  best  seen  in  these  un 
related  efforts — these  vagrant  children  of  his 
mind.  You  know  that  this  man  thought  before 
he  took  the  pen  in  hand.  He  writes  without 
pretence,  without  the  vices  of  the  literary  habit, 
without  artifice  or  evasion, — clearly,  frankly, 
as  a  gentleman  should  speak.  In  written  con 
troversy  he  was  relentless  in  his  logic, — press 
ing  the  point  home, — but  unfailing  in  courtesy. 
As  he  himself  would  have  said,  his  mental  man 
ners  were  good — they  were  at  any  rate  "sweet 
ness  and  light"  compared  with  those  of  his 
adversaries. 


IN  RE  COLONEL  INGERSOLL     75 

He  did  not  profess  to  love  his  enemies,  yet 
he  treated  them  more  humanely  than  many  who 
made  that  profession. 

We  are  never  to  forget  that  the  chief  article 
of  his  offending  was,  that  he  made  war  upon 
the  Dogma  of  an  everlasting  Hell. 

In  his  controversies  he  was  never  worsted, 
from  a  rational  standpoint  (sic),  and  his  vic 
tories  seem  not  less  due  to  his  own  fairness  in 
argument  and  tenacity  of  logic  than  to  the 
weakness  and  confusion  of  his  opponents.  The 
natural  and  supernatural  can  not  maintain  a 
profitable  argument.  They  can  never  agree 
and,  strictly  speaking,  one  can  not  overcome 
the  other — they  occupy  separate  realms. 

It  is  useless  for  a  man  who  believes  in 
miracles  to  argue  with  a  man  who  does  not — a 
miracle  and  a  fact  are  in  the  nature  of  things 
irreconcilable. 

Renan  said  to  the  theologians,  "Come,  gen 
tlemen,  let  us  have  one  miracle  here  before 
the  savants  in  Paris — that  will  end  the  dispute 
forever."  He  asked  in  vain — miracles  are  no 
longer  granted  for  the  conversion  of  infidels, 
and  if  they  occur  at  all,  it  is  before  witnesses 
whose  faith  predisposes  them  to  belief.  It 
may  be  hazarded  that  no  one  ever  believed 


76  AN  ATTIC  DREAMER 

in  a  miracle  who  did  not  wish  to  believe  in 
it. 

In  a  purely  rational  view  it  must  be  allowed 
that  the  honors  of  controversy  usually  fell  to 
Colonel  Ingersoll.  His  apparent  victories 
were,  of  course,  easily  waived  by  those  who  be 
lieved  that  they  had  Divine  Truth  on  their 
side.  Yet  they  must  have  regretted  that  the 
supernatural  can  be  so  ill  defended.  That  all 
the  advantage  of  reason  would  seem  to  be  with 
the  enemy  of  light.  That  one  who  can  make 
himself  understood  should  prevail  over  the 
champion  of  Revealed  Truth,  which  is  in  its 
nature  incomprehensible.  That  it  should  be 
so  hard  to  square  reason  with  revelation,  fact 
with  fable,  method  with  miracle,  dreams  with 
demonstrations. 

Of  all  these  tourneys  of  skill  and  wit  and 
logic,  Colonel  Ingersoll  is  seen  at  his  best  in 
his  reply  to  Gladstone.  Perhaps  nothing  that 
he  ever  did  more  thoroughly  certifies  the  power 
and  keenness  of  his  mind,  the  bed-rock  of  his 
convictions.  He  was  like  an  athlete  rejoicing 
in  his  strength ;  merciful  to  his  adversary,  as 
feeling  that  the  victory  was  sure;  always  con 
scious  of  his  power,  but  ruling  himself  with 
perfect  poise.  The  one  touch  of  malice  he  al- 


IN  RE  COLONEL  INGERSOLL     77 

lowed  himself  was  when  he  quoted  for  Mr. 
Gladstone's  benefit  the  saying  of  Aristotle,  that 
"clearness  is  the  virtue  of  style"  : — this  arrow 
pierced  the  heart  of  the  British  behemoth. 

In  truth  Mr.  Gladstone,  the  master  of  many 
languages,  the  world-famed  orator,  the  "most 
learned  layman  of  Europe",  appeared  at  a 
manifest  disadvantage  in  his  duel  with  the 
American.  He  tried  to  write  in  the  "Bishop's 
voice",  to  overawe  his  adversary  with  Greek 
and  Latin  quotations,  omitting  to  give  the  Eng 
lish  equivalent.  He  begged  the  question,  floun 
dered  about  it,  did  everything  but  argue  it,  and 
finally  took  refuge  behind  the  "exuberance_of 
his  own  verbosity".  Colonel  Ingersoll,  cool, 
urbane,  inflexible,  asked  only  for  the  facts;  Mr. 
Gladstone,  flustered,  irritated,  conscious  of  his 
weakness,  had  apparently  none  to  give  and 
raised  a  cloud  of  words.  The  world  waited 
eagerly  for  Mr.  Gladstone's  rejoinder:  it  never 
came,  and  the  trophies  of  debate  seemed  to  rest 
with  the  American.  Needless  to  say,  this  left 
the  great  Question  still  at  issue. 


78  AN  ATTIC  DREAMER 

VI 

/COLONEL  INGERSOLL  has  been  so 
\^4  slandered  and  defamed  by  the  intemper 
ate  friends  of  orthodox  religion  that  many  peo 
ple  have  no  just  idea  of  the  man  or  of  the  prin 
ciples  for  which  he  contended.  Slander  is  too 
often  the  favorite  weapon  of  persons  who  claim 
to  love  their  enemies  as  themselves.  It  was 
used  so  effectively  against  Voltaire  that  even  at 
this  late  day  many  liberal  Christians  are  afraid 
to  read  him. 

Separating  the  odium  theologicum  from  the 
argument  and  the  slanderous  motive  of  those 
who  libel  a  sublime  cause  by  their  uncharity,  let 
us  see  how  the  matter  really  stands. 

Did  Ingersoll  say  there  is  no  God? 

No;  he  said  he  did  not  know. 

What  did  he  deny  as  to  God? 

He  denied  the  existence  'of  the  personal  Jew 
ish  God — the  Jehovah  of  the  Hebrew  Scrip 
tures. 

He  denied  and  repudiated  the  dogma  of  an 
eternal  Hell,  said  to  have  been  made  by  Jehovah 
in  order  to  gratify  his  revenge  upon  the  great 
majority  of  the  human  race. 

Did  he  attack  Christianity? 


IN  RE  COLONEL  INGERSOLL     79 

He  attacked  only  what  he  conceived  to  be 
the  evil  part  of  it,  in  so  far  as  it  justified 
and  continued  the  curses  of  the  Old  Testament. 
He  made  a  distinction  between  the  real  and 
the  theological  Christ:  the  first  he  honored  as 
a  great  moral  teacher  and  a  martyr  of  freedom, 
killed  by  the  orthodox  priests  of  his  day;  the 
second  he  denied  and  repudiated  as  a  creation 
of  men. 

Did  he  believe  in  a  Hereafter? 

He  believed  that  no  one  could  know  whether 
there  is  or  is  not  a  future  life  of  the  soul.  But 
he  was  not  without  the  hope  of  immortality 
which  has  in  all  ages  cheered  and  fortified  the 
heart  of  man. 

It  follows  from  all  this  that  he  did  not  accept 
the  Revelation  of  the  Hebrew  Bible,  its  cos 
mogony,  geology  or  morality;  nor  the  New 
Testament  with  its  Scheme  of  Atonement  and 
threat  of  Eternal  Damnation — God  suffering 
in  his  own  person  for  the  sins  of  the  world,  yet 
condemning  the  far  greater  number  of  his  chil 
dren  to  everlasting  pain. 

What  positive  effect  had  his  example  and 
teaching? 

It  liberalized  the  creeds  in  spite  of  them 
selves. 


8o  AN  ATTIC  DREAMER 

It  made  the  preaching  of  Hell  unpopular. 

It  made  for  sanity  in  religion  and  enlarged 
the  province  of  honest  doubt. 

It  caused  men  to  think  more  of  the  simple 
human  virtues  and  less  of  the  theological  ones. 

There  is  no  doubt  at  all  that  it  saved  many 
from  the  madhouse  who  might  have  accused 
themselves  of  committing  the  Unpardonable 
Sin. 

It  helped  to  make  better  husbands,  kinder 
fathers,  more  loyal  and  loving  sons. 

It  was  a  great  step  toward  freedom  and 
light.  It  enlarged  the  horizon  of  hope — it 
advanced  the  standard  of  liberty. 

Colonel  Ingersoll  was  a  free  man,  talking  in 
a  country  where  all  are  presumed  to  be  free,  yet 
his  courage,  more  than  the  laws,  protected  him. 

He  upheld  public  and  private  morality  and 
was  himself  an  exemplar  of  both. 

He  loved  only  one  woman  as  his  wife  and 
lived  with  her  in  perfect  honor  and  fidelity.  He 
loved  his  children  and  was  idolized  by  them. 

His  abilities  and  services  reflected  honor 
upon  the  state. 

It  is  agreed  that  but  for  his  religious  views, 
he  might  have  reached  the  greatest  honor  in 
the  Nation's  gift.  As  it  is,  he  has  gained  a 


IN  RE  COLONEL  INGERSOLL     81 

place  in  the  Republic  of  Intellect  to  which  few 
of  our  Presidents  may  aspire. 

His  crime  was,  that  he  had  elected  to  exer 
cise  his  reason,  had  interrogated  Revelation, 
put  Moses  in  the  witness-box,  and  asked  for  the 
facts. 

VII 

IT  IS  claimed  by  certain  critics  that  Colonel 
Ingersoll,  being  defective  in  scientific  equip 
ment  as  well  as  in  exact  scholarship,  was  unable 
to  produce  such  effects  by  his  teaching  as  might 
otherwise  have  been  feared  by  the  orthodox. 
It  seems  to  me  the  contention  is  quite  unsup 
ported  by  logic  or  fact.  True,  Colonel  Inger 
soll  was  neither  a  Darwin  nor  a  Huxley,  neither 
a  Tyndall  nor  a  Spencer.  He  lacked  the  special 
training  and  scientific  grasp  of  all  these,  as  well 
as  the  searching  erudition  and  ripened  philo 
sophic  spirit  of  Ernest  Renan,  in  our  time  the 
chief  protagonist  in  the  domain  of  liberal 
thought.  But  had  Colonel  Ingersoll  been  other 
than  he  was,  it  is  doubtful  if  he  would  have 
achieved  so  distinct  an  effect.  In  mere  scholar 
ship  he  was  at  least  equal  if  not  superior  to 
Thomas  Paine,  and  he  was  no  more  unscientific 
than  Voltaire.  As  a  propagandist  of  liberal 


82  AN  ATTIC  DREAMER 

opinions,  and  as  a  living  force,  he  was  far 
greater  than  the  former  by  virtue  of  the  free 
play  accorded  to  his  vigorous  and  persuasive 
eloquence.  That  his  influence  in  no  way  ap 
proaches  that  of  Voltaire,  is  not  a  fact  which 
demands  explanation.  A  stream  can  not  rise 
higher  than  its  source.  The  whole  liberal 
movement  may  almost  be  said  to  have  pro 
ceeded  from  the  great  Frenchman,  whose  por 
tentous  eminence  remains  secured  to  him  alone. 
But  if  Ingersoll  was  neither  scientific  in  a 
profound  sense,  nor  cultured  in  a  scholastic  one, 
he  was  not  the  less  manifestly  cut  out  for  his 
work.  He  gave  his  audiences  just  what  they 
expected  to  get  and  were  glad  to  pay  for — ora 
tory,  which  it  serves  no  purpose  now  to  dis 
parage  and  which,  in  spite  of  all  disparagement, 
often  rose  to  a  noble  height  and  strain.  Wit 
that  played  like  lambent  lightning  about  the  old 
structures  of  belief,  showing  many  an  obscure 
niche  and  cranny  that,  mayhap,  had  escaped 
the  torches  of  earlier  investigators.  Pathos 
that  proved  the  poet  in  the  orator  and  needed 
only  a  metrical  expression — nay,  sometimes  un 
consciously  attained  it.  Humor  that  evinced 
this  man's  sympathetic  touch  with  his  fellow 
men  and  that  not  seldom  won  their  regard 


IN  RE  COLONEL  INGERSOLL     83 

when  all  the  protean  resources  of  his  eloquence 
had  failed  to  persuade.  Lastly,  a  gracious  and 
noble  presence, 

Where  every  god  did  seem  to  set  his  seal 
To  give  the  world  assurance  of  a  man; 

and  a  voice  whose  thrilling  organ  melody  it  will 
long  be  the  solace  of  many  thousands  to  have 
heard. 

How  much  of  the  Colonel  will  live  as  a  per 
manent  legacy,  is  a  graver  question  than  that  of 
his  influence  upon  his  contemporaries.  Littera 
scripta  manet,  and  the  Ingersollian  word  is, 
essentially,  the  spoken  word.  Most  of  his 
writings  are  cast  in  the  form  of  speeches;  were 
obviously  written  to  be  delivered  as  such.  John 
Morley  notes  this  as  a  sensible  depreciation 
of  a  great  part  of  Macaulay's  brilliant  work. 

The  finer  note  addressed  to  the  mental  ear 
is  more  palpably  lacking  in  the  American.  One 
sees  this  at  once  by  turning  from  Colonel  Inger- 
soll's  speeches  to  the  papers  of  his  controversy 
with  Gladstone,  to  which  I  have  already  re 
ferred.  In  these  letters  Colonel  Ingersoll  dis 
plays  a  closeness  of  reasoning,  a  dialectic  fence, 
an  analytic  subtlety,  which  are  quite  foreign 
to  his  ordinary  processes.  The  fact  is,  that 


84  AN  ATTIC  DREAMER 

Colonel  Ingersoll,  being  a  born  pleader  and 
skilled,  moreover,  in  a  long  course  of  forensic 
training,  adopted  too  much,  perhaps,  in  his 
speeches,  the  lawyer's  plan  of  making  the  most 
of  the  adversary's  weak  points.  Hence,  the 
brutality,  at  times,  of  Ingersoll's  philippics 
against  the  Christian  religion,  and  hence,  also, 
the  unlikelihood  of  their  being  permanently  em 
bodied  in  the  canon  of  liberal  faith.  The  keen 
ness  of  the  critical  spirit  was  in  Colonel  Inger 
soll;  in  its  charity  he  was  often  wanting. 


VIII 


COLONEL    INGERSOLL    belongs    with 
the  select  company  of  the  great  Ameri 
cans. 

He  is  of  the  fellowship  of  Jefferson  and 
Franklin,  of  Lincoln  and  Sumner.  His  pa 
triotism  was  second  only  to  his  passion  for  uni 
versal  liberty.  He  loved  his  country  beyond 
everything  except  freedom.  He  was  not  a  fire 
side  patriot — the  temper  of  his  devotion  had 
been  proved  in  the  baptism  of  battle.  His  pa 
triotic  speeches  rank  with  the  best  in  our  litera 
ture  :  the  Vision  of  War  is  as  high  an  utterance 


IN  RE  COLONEL  INGERSOLL     85 

as  Lincoln's  Gettysburg  Speech  and  as  surely 
immortal. 

He  was  a  great  American,  loving  liberty, 
fraternity,  equality.  He  hated  the  spirit  of 
Caste  which  he  saw  rising  among  our  people, 
and  he  struck  at  it  with  all  the  force  of  his 
honest  anger. 

He  despised  the  worship  of  titles  among  the 
rich,  their  tuft-hunting,  aping  of  aristocratic 
airs  and  mean  prostration  before  the  self-styled 
nobility  of  the  Old  World.  To  him  the  most 
loathsome  object  in  the  world  was  an  American 
ashamed  of  his  country. 

He  urged  that  the  representatives  of  repub 
lics  should  have  precedence  at  Washington. 
He  condemned  the  flummery  of  our  diplomatic 
etiquette,  the  foolish  kow-towing  designed  to 
flatter  the  ambassadors  of  servile  nations. 

His  patriotism  was  purer  than  that  of  our 
Christian  statesmen  who  wish  to  subjugate  in 
the  name  of  liberty — to  expand  in  territory  and 
contract  in  honor. 

He  was  an  individualist,  believing  that  equal 
rights  and  equal  opportunities  hold  the  solu 
tion  of  every  social  problem. 

He  saw  no  evil  in  wealth,  save  the  abuse  of 
it,  and  he  did  not  think  it  a  virtue  to  be  poor. 


86  AN  ATTIC  DREAMER 

He  believed  that  everyone  was  entitled  to 
comfort,  well-being,  happiness  in  this  world. 
He  denied  that  God  has  purposely  divided  his 
children  into  rich  and  poor;  he  saw  in  this  the 
teaching  of  a  false  religious  system  which  has 
sanctioned  every  oppression  and  injustice,  and 
has  cursed  the  earth  with  misery. 

He  regarded  pauperism  not  as  a  proof  of 
the  special  favor  of  God,  but  as  an  indictment 
of  man. 

He  was  a  lover  of  justice,  of  mercy,  of  hu 
manity.  He  was  a  true  friend  of  the  toiling 
millions  and  in  their  behalf  pleaded  for  a  work 
ing  day  of  eight  hours.  Christianity  had  long 
suffered  it,  but  he  was  unwilling  that  a  single 
overburdened  creature  should  "curse  God  and 
die". 

He  pleaded  for  the  abolition  of  the  death 
penalty,  that  relic  of  savagery.  He  hated  all 
forms  of  cruelty  and  violence,  but  especially 
those  that  claim  the  sanction  of  law.  He  de 
nounced  the  whipping  post  in  Delaware — and 
Delaware  replied  by  a  threat  to  indict  him  for 
blasphemy. 

He  pleaded  for  the  abolition  of  poverty  and 
drunkenness,  for  the  fullest  liberation  of 
woman,  for  the  rights  of  the  child. 


IN  RE  COLONEL  INGERSOLL     87 

His  great  heart  went  out  in  sympathy  to 
everything  that  suffers — to  the  dumb  animals, 
beaten  and  overladen;  to  the  feathered  victims 
of  caprice  and  cruelty. 

The  circle  of  this  man's  philanthropy  was 
complete.  He  filled  the  measure  of  patriotism, 
of  civic  duty,  of  the  sacred  relations  of  hus 
band  and  father,  of  generosity  and  kindness 
toward  his  fellow  men.  But  he  had  committed 
treason  against  the  Unknown,  and  this,  in  spite 
of  the  fame  and  success  which  his  talents  com 
manded,  made  of  him  a  social  Pariah.  The 
herd  admired  and  envied  his  freedom,  but  for 
the  most  part  they  gave  him  the  road  and  went 
by  on  the  other  side. 

IX 

THIS  country  is  freer  and  better  for  the 
life  of  Colonel  Ingersoll. 

There  is  more  light,  more  air  in  the  prison- 
house  of  theology. 

God  may  be  a  guess,  but  man  is  a  certainty; 
men  are  thinking  more  of  their  obligations  to 
ward  those  about  them — the  weak,  the  help 
less,  the  fallen, — and  less  about  securing  for 
themselves  a  halo  and  a  harp  in  the  New 
Jerusalem. 


88  AN  ATTIC  DREAMER 

Ingersoll's  great  lesson  that  men  can  not  love 
one  another  if  they  believe  in  a  God  of  hate, 
is  bearing  fruit. 

The  hypocrite  shall  not  enter  the  Kingdom 
of  Heaven! 

Truth  will  yet  compel  all  the  churches  to 
cease  libelling  God  and  to  honor  humanity.  .  .  . 

The  great  man  whose  worth  and  work  I 
have  barely  glanced  at  in  these  pages,  said 
bravely,  that  he  cared  less  for  the  freedom  of 
religion  than  for  the  Religion  of  Freedom. 
When  that  larger  light  shall  flood  the  world — 
and  not  until  then — his  services  to  the  cause 
of  Truth,  of  Liberty  and  Humanity  will  be  fitly 
honored. 

As  for  his  literary  testament,  I  find  it  easy 
to  believe  that  many  a  noble  sentence  winged 
with  the  utmost  felicity  of  speech,  many  a  fine 
sentiment,  the  fruit  of  his  kindlier  thought, 
many  a  tender  word  spoken  to  alleviate  the 
sorrow  of  death,  will  long  remain.  Even  the 
professed  critics  who  make  so  small  ado  of  the 
Colonel's  literary  merits,  may  well  envy  him 
the  noble  essay  on  Shakespeare,  the  more 
powerful  one  on  Voltaire,  or  the  beautiful 
memorial  tribute  to  Walt  Whitman.  And  it 
may  be  that  "so  long  as  love  kisses  the  lips  of 


IN  RE  COLONEL  INGERSOLL     89 

death",  so  long  shall  men  and  women,  in  the 
nighted  hour  of  grief  and  loss,  bless  the  name 
of  him  who  touched  the  great  heart  of  hu 
manity  in  that  high  and  unmatched  deliverance 
at  his  brother's  grave.  .  .  . 

From  a  sunken  Syrian  tomb  long  antedating 
the  Christian  era,  Ernest  Renan  brushed  away 
the  dust  and  found  inscribed  thereon  the  sin 
gle  word, 

"Courage!" 


IV 


RICHARD  WAGNER'S  ROMANCE 


THE  story  of  the  man  of  genius  who 
finds  inspiration  in  another  man's  wife 
is  not  a  new  one,  and  it  may  even  be 
called  trite,  but  it  is  one  to  which  the  world 
always  lends  a  willing  ear. 

This  is  the  story  revealed  in  the  English  ver 
sion  of  the  letters  of  Richard  Wagner  to  Ma- 
thilde  Wesendonck.  In  Germany,  sweet  land 
of  sentiment,  the  book  has  reached  the  twen 
tieth  edition  and  is  generally  acclaimed  as  a 
true  classic.  In  Germany,  also,  the  alleged 
Platonic  motive  of  the  letters,  elsewhere  looked 
at  askance,  is  easily  admitted,  since,  as  is  well 
known  to  the  nightingales  and  the  lindens,  a 
German  lover  will  pursue  an  ardent  courtship 
through  a  dozen  years  without  daring  once  to 
put  an  arm  around  his  divinity's  waist.  Art 
and  love  are  a  great  patience  in  Germany. 

They  were  surely  so  in  the  case  of  Richard 
Wagner;  and  it  is  characteristic  of  the  Teuton 

90 


RICHARD  WAGNER'S  ROMANCE    91 

that  he    has   left    the   world    in    doubt    as    to 
whether  his  patience  was  ever  rewarded. 

The  doubt  is  indeed  the  chief  provocation 
of  these  letters  (outside  of  Germany),  and  fur 
nishes  the  artistic  motive  by  which  they  will 
endure. 

Or,  to  put  the  matter  plainly,  the  other 
man's  wife  supplies  the  interest  of  this  book. 
As  of  many  others  in  the  chronicle  of  great 
ness. 

Think  you,  had  these  letters  been  addressed 
to  Frau  Wagner,  that  all  the  chaste  nightin 
gales  of  Germany  would  now  be  tuning  in  their 
praise?  Or  that  our  own  sentimentalists,  with 
the  unsexed  Corybantes  of  music,  would  be 
swelling  such  a  chorus  of  acclaim?  Would  the 
world  be  eager  to  identify  Frau  Wagner  with 
the  conception  of  "Isolde",  and  should  we  be 
hearing  all  this  patter  about  ideal  union  of 
souls,  spiritual  passion,  etc.,  etc.?  Not  so!— 
the  world  will  not  tolerate  the  indecency  of  a 
man  of  genius  loving  his  wife  and  personifying 
her  in  the  creations  of  his  art. 

There  is  not  a  single  truly  famous  book  in 
the  world's  literature,  of  letters  written  by  a 
man  of  genius  to  his  wife. 

The  letters  are  always  written  to  some  other 


92  AN  ATTIC  DREAMER 

woman  and,  preferably,  some  other  man's 
wife.  Why  this  should  be  so,  only  the  good 
Lord  knows  who  made  us  as  we  are. 

Poor  Penelope  keeps  house,  often  red-eyed 
and  sad,  during  the  excursions  of  genius;  she 
treasures  up  with  a  broken-hearted  care  and 
stores  away  in  a  lavender-scented  drawer  with 
the  early- love-letters  (of  which  the  genius  is 
now  ashamed)  curt  messages  on  postal  cards — 
hurry-up  requests  for  clean  linen  or  an  e^xtra 
"nighty";  express  tags  speaking  eloquently  of 
some  cheap  gift  by  which  the  great  man  dis 
charged  the  obligation  of  writing  (preserved 
by  the  simple  soul  because  he  had  scrawled  her 
name  upon  them)  ;  and  perhaps  a  small  packet 
of  letters  that  deal  wholly  with  HIS  ideas  of 
domestic  government,  usually  couched  in  a 
peevish  tone  and  with  a  hard  selfishness  of  in 
tention  that  strangely  contrasts  with  the  man's 
meditated,  public  revelation  of  self — not  a 
flower  of  the  heart  in  them  all,  as  poor 
Penelope,  starving  for  a  word  of  love,  sees 
through  her  dropping  tears. 

Now  these  things  have  some  value  to  a  neg 
lected  wife,  but  they  can  not  usefully  be  worked 
up  in  the  biography  of  a  man  of  genius. 

What  wonder  that  Penelope  takes  into  her 


RICHARD  WAGNER'S  ROMANCE    93 

tender  bosom  the  subtle  demon  of  jealousy,  be 
comes  a  shrew  and  a  scold,  and  presently — 
goaded  by  the  man's  cold  and  steady  refusal 
to  satisfy  her  by  giving  her  the  lov,e  which  she 
knows  with  a  woman's  sure  instinct  is  being 
secretly  lavished  upon  another — what  wonder, 
I  say,  that  Penelope  under  such  maddening 
provocation,  finding  herself  a  cheated  and  un 
loved  wife,  becomes  that  favorite  handiwork 
of  the  Devil  on  this  earth — a  good  woman 
turned  into  a  Fury! 

And  the  beauty  of  it  is,  that  at  this  moment 
she  sets  out  to  justify,  in  the  wrong-headed 
fashion  of  a  woman  who  knows  that  she  can 
take  her  marriage  certificate  to  Heaven  with 
her, — the  infidelity  of  her  husband! 

He,  being  a  man  of  genius,  easily  gets  the 
sympathy  of  the  world — especially  of  all  good 
and  virtuous  women,  every  one  of  whom  feels 
that  she  would  have  been  able  to  satisfy  the 
gifted  person  and  keep  him  properly  straight. 
And  the  great  man  adds  to  the  laurel  of  fame 
the  crown  of  domestic  martyrdom. 

Of  course,  the  injured  wife  might  have 
played  her  game  better,  but  it  was  not  in  the 
cards  for  her  to  win,— having  married  a 
genius. 


94  AN  ATTIC  DREAMER 

So  it  has  come  to  be  an  axiom  that  the  art 
istic  temperament  disqualifies  a  man  for  the 
sober  state  of  matrifnony;  and  many  are  the 
cases  cited  to  prove  it,  from  the  wife  of  Socra 
tes  to  Jane  Welsh  Carlyle  or  Frau  Wagner. 
The  woes  of  the  unhappily  mated  genius 
clamor  down  the  ages  like  the  harsh  echoes  of 
a  family  row  before  the  policeman  reaches  the 
corner.  Also  they  make  a  large  figure  in  what 
is  called  polite  literature,  especially  as  the 
sorely  tried  genius  finds  in  the  sorrows  of  his 
hearth  a  strong  incentive  to  the  production  of 
copy.  Hence  the  thing  is  not  without  its  com 
pensations,  and  the  lovers  of  gossip,  who  are 
always  the  chief  patrons  of  literature,  do  not 
seek  their  food  in  vain. 

I  suspect  that  the  matter  of  vanity  has  much 
to  do  with  cooking  the  domestic  troubles — his 
word  is  "tragedy" ! — of  the  genius.  It  is  very 
hard  to  domesticate  the  species,  and  wonder 
ful  is  the  arrogance  which  the  notion  of  genius 
will  breed  in  the  homeliest  man,  causing  him 
to  look  with  easy  contempt  on  the  beautiful 
woman  who  perhaps  married  him  out  of  pity. 
The  artist  is  the  peacock  among  husbands — his 
lofty  soul,  his  majestic  port,  his  rainbow  plu 
mage,  and  even,  as  he  thinks,  the  beauty  of  his 


RICHARD  WAGNER'S  ROMANCE    95 

voice — that  top  note  especially! — move  him  to 
a  measureless  disdain  of  the  annoyingly  con 
stant,  unvaried  and  tiresome  hero-worship  of 
his  plain  little  mate — it  is  quite  curious  how, 
after  a  time,  he  comes  even  to  ignore  her 
beauty.  To  be  sure,  she  has  her  home  uses, 
and  very  convenient  on  occasion  these  are,  even 
to  the  most  glorious  of  peacocks;  but  he  is  for 
the  Cosmos  and  must  not  limit  his  resplendency 
to  a  narrow  poultry-yard — go  to,  woman ! 
And  there  you  are. 

Then,  of  course,  the  artist  must  always  be 
in  quest  of  new  sensations, — in  other  words, 
must  feed  his  genius,  to  which  satiety  is  death; 
and  it  seems  to  be  agreed  that  such  sensations 
and  experiences  are  only  to  be  had  from  other 
women,  or  at  least,  some  other  woman — and 
how  are  you  going  to  get  away  from  that? 

I  have  heard  of  a  certain  man,  of  coarse 
fibre,  who  would  have  given  his  soul  to  be 
thought  an  artist;  who  plotted,  asleep  and 
awake,  during  long  years,  to  get  rid  of  his  law 
ful  wife  and  take  on  a  woman  he  believed  to 
be  his  affinity.  The  man's  passionate  desire  to 
work  this  wrong  gave  him  a  kind  of  power  and 
eloquence  which,  strange  to  say,  failed  him 
when  at  last  he  had  succeeded  in  carrying  out 


96  AN  ATTIC  DREAMER 

his  purpose.  And  then,  so  gossip  ran,  he  wished 
to  win  the  old  love  back  again  (coupled  in  his 
memory  with  both  unrest  and  power),  but  that, 
of  course,  was  hopeless;  so  that  verily  the  last 
state  of  this  man  was  worse  than  the  first. 

All  of  which  is  not  without  bearing  upon  the 
story  of  Richard  Wagner  and  Mathilde  We- 
sendonck. 

I  am  not  concerned  to  upset  the  Platonic 
theory,  so  dear  to  German  sentimentalists,  of 
the  love-affair  between  the  great  Wagner  and 
the  wife  of  Herr  Wesendonck.  People  will 
judge  according  to  the  evidence  and  their  pri 
vate  feelings.  It  must  be  allowed  that  there 
are  expressions  in  the  letters  that  would  go  far 
toward  establishing  a  cnm.  con.  in  the  case  of 
any  but  a  German  like  Wagner,  and  a  master 
sentimentalist  at  that.  Such  a  passage  as  this 
for  example : 

"Once  more,  that  thou  couldst  hurl  thyself 
on  every  conceivable  sorrow  of  the  world  to 
say  to  me,  'I  love  thee',  redeemed  me  angl  won 
for  me  that  'solemn  pause'  whence  my  life  has 
gained  another  meaning. 

"But  that  state  divine  indeed  was  only  to  be 
won  at  cost  of  all  the  griefs  and  pains  of  love — 
we  have  drunk  them  to  their  very  dregs !  And 
now,  after  suffering  every  sorrow,  being  spared 


RICHARD  WAGNER'S  ROMANCE    97 

no  grief,  now  must  the  quick  of  that  higher  life 
show  clearly  what  we  have  won  through  all  the 
agony  of  those  birth-throes." 

I  repeat,  only  a  German  sentimentalist  could 
hold  such  language  without  compelling  an  ob 
vious  conclusion.  The  fact  that  in  the  face 
of  this  and  similarly  passionate  avowals,  public 
opinion  in  Germany  absolves  the  lovers  of  any 
positive  guilt  in  their  relations,  is  a  high  tribute 
to  that  national  virtue  which  was  anciently  cele 
brated  by  Tacitus  and  more  recently  by  Hein- 
rich  Heine. 

It  is  the  greater  pity  that  the  present  Eng 
lish  translation  should  have  been  made  by  a 
gushing,  lymphatic  person,  one  W.  Ashton 
Ellis,  who  instead  of  suffering  the  letters  to 
speak  for  themselves,  writes  a  silly  preface 
wherein  he  seeks  to  clear  Frau  Wesendonck's 
character,  in  advance,  and  thereby  naturally 
awakens  the  reader's  doubts.  I  protest  but  for 
this  marplot  fellow  I  should  have  set  it  all 
down  to  the  account  of  German  sentimentalism 
and  have  laid  the  book  aside  without  hearing 
anything  worse  than  the  nightingale  in  the 
linden,  pouring  forth  his  soul  in  the  enchanted 
moonlight  of  German  poesy.  But  now  it  is 
spoiled  for  me  by  such  twaddle  as  this: 


98  AN  ATTIC  DREAMER 

"This  placid,  sweet  Madonna,  the  perfect 
emblem  of  a  pearl,  not  .opal,  her  eyes  still 
dreaming  of  Nirvana, — no  !  emphatically  no  ! 
she  could  not  once  have  been  swayed  by  carnal 
passion.  In  these  letters  all  is  pure  and  spirit 
ual,  a  Dante  and  a  Beatrice;  so  must  it  have 
been  in  their  intercourse." 

Which  illustrates  how  the  defence  is  so  often 
fatal  in  matters  of  literary  biography.  And  yet 
I  have  not  heard  of  a  literary  man  wise  enough 
to  ask  that  neither  his  memory  nor  his  acts 
should  ever  be  defended. 

Many  a  small  person  contrives  to  attract  a 
moment's  notice  by  defending  the  silent  great. 

Fame  has  no  more  subtle  irony. 

Richard  Wagner  met  Mathilde  Wesendonck 
in  1852  when  he  was  forty  years  old  and  she 
twenty-four.  He  had  already  written  "Rienzi", 
uThe  Flying  Dutchman",  "Tannhauser"  and 
"Lohengrin".  Nobody  has  ever  dreamed  of 
attributing  the  inspiration  of  any  of  these 
works  to  his  wife  Minna. 

It  is  seldom  indeed  that  a  woman  is  credited 
with  inspiring  a  man  of  genius — after  she  has 
married  him.  As  a  literary  theory  the  thing 
is  not  popular. 

Wagner's  wife   had  been   an  opera   singer. 


RICHARD  WAGNER'S  ROMANCE    99 

It  is  admitted  even  by  the  great  man's  jealous 
biographers,  that  she  was  of  more  than  ordi 
nary  beauty,  that  she  shared  bravely  his  early 
hardships  and  that  she  was  a  pure  and  loyal 
wife. 

But  it  seems  certain  that  she  did  not  inspire 
the  great  man.  In  his  later  life  he  was  wont  to 
say  that  his  wedlock  had  been  nothing  but  a 
trial  of  his  patience  and  pity;  perhaps  he  was 
indebted  for  this  to  his  vanity  rather  than  his 
recollection. 

Mathilde,  on  the  contrary,  was  Wagner's  in 
spiration,  for  has  he  not  told  us  so? — though, 
to  be  sure,  we  may  credit  her  with  inspiring 
only  one  opera,  "Tristan  and  Isolde".  Unfor 
tunately,  she  was  the  wife  of  another  man,  but 
again,  fortunately,  her  husband  was  of  a  truly 
Germanic  simplicity  and  childlike  trust. 

Herr  Wesendonck  was  also  a  man  of  means 
and  could  give  his  wife  the  indulgence  of  many 
luxuries  and  whims,  which  must  have  added  to 
her  attractiveness  in  the  eyes  of  the  struggling 
man  of  genius.  Money  has  never  been  known 
to  cheapen  the  charms  of  a  really  desirable 
woman. 

Portraits  of  Mathilde  show  a  Madonna-like 
face  of  pure  and  delicate  outline,  with  eyes  of 


ioo  AN  ATTIC  DREAMER 

haunting  tenderness  and  a  mouth  of  sensitive 
appeal — such  lips,  so  sweet  yet  sad,  so  inviting 
yet  so  free  from  sensual  suggestion,  are  seen 
only  among  the  higher  types  of  German  beauty. 
Not,  I  grant  you,  a  face  indicating  carnal  pas 
sion,  but  what  then? — many  a  woman  who 
looked  like  a  Madonna  has  loved  not  wisely 
but  too  well,  and  some  have  been  known  to 
bear  children  in  the  human  fashion. 

I  have  never  seen  a  portrait  of  Herr  We- 
sendonck. 

Truly  he  deserves  one  for  consenting  to  the 
romance  which  has  immortalized  his  name. 
Wagner  seems  to  have  felt  this  when  he  once 
wrote  Herr  Wesendonck  that  the  latter  should 
have  a  place  with  him  in  the  history  of  art.  In 
this  letter  Wagner  says  nothing  of  the  fine  set 
of  horns  which  (outside  of  Germany)  an  evil- 
minded  generation  has  freely  awarded  his 
generous  friend. 

Mark  here  again  the  gushing  Ellis: 

"It  is  as  a  knightly  figure  that  he  (Herr 
Wesendonck)  will  ever  abide  in  the  memory 
of  all  who  met  him,  and  surely  truer  knightli- 
ness  than  he  displayed  in  a  singularly  difficult 
conjuncture,  can  nowhere  have  been  found  out 
side  King  Arthur's  court.  Undoubtedly  it  was 


RICHARD  WAGNER'S  ROMANCE  ioi 

he  who  was  the  greatest  sufferer  for  several 
years, — by  no  means  Minna, — years  of  per 
petual  heart-burnings  bravely  borne." 

Herr  Wesendonck  was  indeed  a  pattern 
husband  for  a  young  woman  of  romantic 
yearnings. 

He  shared  her  admiration  for  Wagner's 
genius  and  for  a  long  time  refused  to  see  that 
his  wife  was  actuated  by  any  other  motive. 

He  gave  Wagner  financial  aid  and  finally 
offered  him,  with  Minna,  a  home  in  a  pretty 
cottage  on  his  estate  at  Zurich. 

He  tolerated  the  connection  even  after  it 
had  become  the  occasion  of  bitter  quarrels  on 
his  domestic  hearth. 

On  the  whole,  I  am  persuaded  that  a  figure 
of  like  Chivalry  is  not  to  be  found  outside  of 
Germany,  nor  perhaps  anywhere  since  the  noble 
Knight  of  the  Sorrowful  Countenance. 

Mathilde's  few  letters  tell  us  nothing — her 
soul  is  never  unveiled — she  compels  us  to  take 
Wagner's  word  for  the  whole  of  the  romance. 
Her  attitude  in  this  correspondence — if  such  it 
may  be  called — puts  the  great  man  in  a  dubious 
light.  We  may  not  think  the  less  of  the  artist, 
but  the  man  loses  nobility;  Herr  Wesendonck 
gets  his  revenge. 


ro2  AN  ATTIC  DREAMER 

But  at  last  Minna  intercepted  one  of  Wag 
ner's  letters  to  Mathilde  (which  is  not  given 
in  this  collection),  and  delivered  it  herself,  with 
words  suiting  the  occasion.  Naturally,  this 
broke  up  the  arrangements  at  Zurich;  Wagner 
sent  his  wife  back  to  her  parents  and  betook 
himself  to  Venice.  Herr  Wesendonck's  con 
duct  in  the  circumstances  was  without  a  flaw; 
this  admirable  man  seems  truly  worthy  both  of 
Germany  and  Spain. 

There  is  a  harmless  mania  for  identifying 
particular  persons  with  poetic  creations,  and 
with  such  hints  as  Wagner  constantly  threw 
out  during  the  period  of  their  attachment,  it 
was  impossible  that  Mathilde  should  escape. 

"With  thee  I  can  do  all  things,"  he  said, 
"without  thee,  nothing!" 

This  was  not  strictly  true,  however,  and 
must  be  taken  as  poetic  license,  since  he  wrote 
several  operas  before  meeting  her  and  did 
some  of  his  greatest  work  long  after  the  part 
ing. 

But  let  me  not  discourage  the  sentimentalists. 
It  is  true  that  he  said,  "For  having  written  the 
'Tristan'  I  thank  you  from  my  deepest  soul  to 
all  eternity." 

It  is  also  certain  that  he  used  to  write  his 


RICHARD  WAGNER'S  ROMANCE  103 

music  with  a  gold  pen  that  Mathilde  had  given 
him,  and  that  in  exile  he  received  from  her  a 
package  of  his  favorite  zwieback  with  tears  of 
joy.  For  these  and  other  reasons  I  would  not 
deny  her  title  to  be  regarded  as  the  original 
inspiration  of  "Tristan  and  Isolde". 

Still,  we  have  all  heard  of  another  enamored 
young  person  who,  when  her  lover  had  got 
himself  somewhat  desperately  out  of  the  way— 

"Went  on  culling  bread  and  butter." 

Absence,  it  appears,  had  some  effect  in  cool 
ing  the  romantic  fervors  of  Mathilde.  Some 
half-dozen  years  after  the  rupture  at  Zurich, 
that  "child  of  our  sorrows,  Tristan  and 
Isolde",  as  Wagner  lovingly  wrote  her  and  to 
which  her  name  for  good  or  evil  is  now  linked 
forever,  was  produced  for  the  first  time  in 
Munich. 

Mathilde  had  the  earliest  invitation,  with 
the  composer's  own  compliments;  but  she  did 
not  attend,  and  the  heart  of  Minna  was  not 
harrowed  by  seeing  her  name  "among  those 
present". 

It  is  no  reproach  to  the  nightingales  of  Ger 
many  that  they  sang  longer  in  the  heart  of  her 
lover.  .  .  . 

And  the  lindens  bloom  on  immortally. 


IN   THE    RED   ROOM 

SURELY  there  was  nothing  supernatural 
about  the  manner  of  it.  The  thing  hap 
pened  in  a  brilliantly  lighted  room  where 
I  was  one  of  a  hundred  persons,  all  occupied 
with  the  very  material  business  of  dining,  and 
dining  well.  No  environment  could  be  more 
unsuited  to  a  visitor  or  a  message  from  the 
Beyond.  The  lights,  the  music,  the  noise  of 
incoming  or  departing  guests,  the  bustling 
waiters,  the  hum  of  joyous  conversation  punc 
tuated  with  the  popping  of  wine  corks,  the  deep 
tones  of  men,  the  staccato  laughter  of  women, 
— these  were  the  accompaniment  of  the 
strangest  experience  of  my  life,  to  which  I  hesi 
tate  to  give  a  name. 

And  then,  oh  my  God!  can  a  Ghost  eat?  can 
a  Ghost  drink?  can  a  Ghost  talk,  and  yet  attract 
no  notice  in  a  crowded  company  of  feasting 
men  and  women? 

Let  me  re-word  the  matter — a  thing  which 
104 


IN  THE  RED  ROOM  105 

Hamlet  tells  us  "madness  would  gambol 
from";  let  me  by  the  strictest  effort  of  memory 
and  reason  strip  the  supernatural  from  it,  if  I 
may.  .  .  . 

I  was  dining  alone  in  a  corner  of  his  favor 
ite  French  cafe;  in  the  Red  Room,  too,  of 
whose  cheerful  warmth  and  brightness  of  color 
he  had  been  outspokenly  fond  in  his  hearty 
way.  He  had  introduced  me  to  this  place  and 
here  we  had  often  dined  together.  Here  or 
elsewhere,  alas,  we  should  dine  together  no 
more  ...  he  died  suddenly  in  his  youth  and 
strength  some  four  years  ago. 

Always  I  think  of  him  when  I  am  in  the  Red 
Room  of  this  cafe,  whether  alone  or  in  com 
pany;  but  this  night  the  thought,  the  image, 
the  vital  recollection  of  him,  faultless  in  every 
detail,  possessed  me  absolutely.  I  had  made 
very  little  progress  with  my  dinner,  and  had 
taken  but  one  glass  of  Chateau  Palmer,  when  I 
resigned  myself  to  the  sad  pleasure  of  keep 
ing  tryst  with  his  memory. 

First  of  all,  my  mind  dwelt  on  our  friend 
ship:  how  sweet  it  was,  how  firm,  how  true; 
with  never  a  doubt  to  mar  it,  never  a  cold  wind 
of  jealousy  or  envy  to  blow  upon  it.  We  were 
lovers, — for  such  friendship  between  men  is  a 


106          AN  ATTIC  DREAMER 

purer  sentiment  than  the  love  of  man  and 
woman,  only  the  nobler  emotions  of  the  heart 
being  engaged. 

We  were  neither  too  old  nor  too  young  for  a 
real  friendship;  both  were  still  well  under  that 
chilly  meridian  where  men  usually  part  with  the 
generosities  and  enthusiasms  of  life  in  order  to 
take  on  the  prudences  and  self-calculations. 
Of  the  two  he  was  the  junior,  but  he  assumed 
a  kind  of  specious  seniority  by  virtue  of  his 
physical  bigness  and  his  greater  success  in  bat 
tling  with  the  world.  O  friend,  how  true  in 
your  case  that  the  battle  is  not  always  to  the 
strong ! 

I  recalled  how  the  anticipation  of  dining  with 
him,  in  this  very  Red  Room,  was  quite  the  most 
exquisite  pleasure  I  have  known,  no  woman 
ever  having  given  me  the  like — though  I  am 
anything  but  a  hater  of  women.  And  I  said 
to  myself  with  a  sigh  that  there  were  not  left 
in  all  the  world  three  men,  the  thought  of 
dining  with  whom  could  yield  me  an  equal  joy. 

That  is,  I  maintain,  the  crucial  test  of  friend 
ship.  Do  you  like  to  dine  with  him?  Not 
without  a  deep  meaning  was  of  old  the  life  of 
a  man  held  sacred  with  whom  one  had  shared 
bread  and  salt.  The  sacramental  rite  of  an- 


IN  THE  RED  ROOM  107 

cient  hospitality  persists  under  our  less  simple 
and  less  beautiful  forms.  Nor  may  we  violate 
it  with  impunity,  barbarians  as  we  are: — Na 
ture  cries  out  against  our  performing  this  act 
with  one  whom  we  dislike  or  mistrust,  or  even 
toward  whom  we  are  indifferent.  In  a  word, 
I  had  rather  make  love  to  a  woman  who  affects 
me  with  a  physical  repulsion  than  dine  with 
a  man  I  don't  like.  The  fact  proves  the  perfect 
sympathy  existing  between  our  physical  and 
psychic  selves,  and  from  this  dual  voice  there 
is  no  appeal — it  is  the  highest  court  of  human 
nature. 

This  was  the  very  thought  in  my  mind  when, 
raising  the  second  glass  of  Bordeaux  to  my 
lips,  I  saw  him  .  .  .  and  set  it  down  untasted. 

He  came  into  the  room  at  the  farthest  en 
trance  leading  direct  to  the  street,  and  shoul 
dered  his  way  through  the  crowd  of  guests  and 
waiters  in  his  old  big  careless  manner,  which 
never  failed  to  move  the  admiration  of  women 
and  the  resentment  of  men.  He  was  dressed 
as  I  had  so  often  seen  him,  not  in  regulation 
evening  clothes,  but  in  a  suit  of  some  rich  gray 
material  which  he  wore  as  if  it  were  a  part  of 
him,  with  a  light  overcoat  tossed  over  his 
arm: — it  was  in  the  early  days  of  April. 


io8  AN  ATTIC  DREAMER 

The  shouldering  gray-suited  giant,  picked 
out  in  strong  relief  from  all  the  black-clad 
guests,  came  straight  toward  me  Across  the 
crowded  room,  his  fine  head,  crowned  with 
auburn  curls,  held  solidly  erect  on  a  columnar 
neck;  the  smiling,  eager  challenge  of  his  eye 
bent  upon  me. 

What  I  thought  God  alone  knows,  if  indeed 
I  was  not  deprived  of  all  conscious  power  of 
thinking  in  that  terrible  moment.  And  yet, 
obedient  to  old  habit,  I  tried  to  rise  from  my 
chair  to  greet  him,  but  found  myself  utterly 
paralyzed.  Neither  hand  nor  foot  could  I 
move. 

But  though  my  body  was  stricken  lifeless  by 
the  presence  of  the  Supernatural,  my  soul, 
strange  to  say,  remained  calm  and  without  ter 
ror.  And  great  as  was  the  physical  shock  of 
the  fear  which  held  me  now  as  in  a.  vise,  I  yet 
wondered  that  our  neighbors,  almost  elbowing 
us,  seemed  to  pay  no  attention  either  to  him  or 
to  me.  .  .  . 

"Don't  get  up,  old  fellow;  you're  a  bit 
shaken.  I'll  just  sit  here,  if  you  don't  mind, 
and  have  a  taste  of  your  dinner  and  a  sip  of 
your  Chateau  Palmer — you  always  did  like  the 
red." 


IN  THE  RED  ROOM  109 

His  voice ! — the  same  genial  tones  in  it  that 
had  ever  such  power  to  thrill  me.  Oh!  I 
could  believe  it  all  a  dream,  an  hallucina 
tion  arising  from  some  disorder  of  the  senses, 
were  it  not  for  that  voice  whose  tones  are 
registered  in  my  heart.  In  obedience  to  a  nod 
from  me, — for  I  could  not  have  spoken  had 
my  life  depended  on  it, — the  waiter,  without 
the  least  apparent  show  of  concern,  laid  an 
other  plate.  From  his  manner  I  could  not 
divine  if  he  were  conscious  of  the  presence  of 
my  Guest. 

Ah !  then  I  knew  it  was  indeed  my  friend 
over  whose  untimely  grave  the  grass  had  with 
ered  and  the  winds  had  blown  during  four  long 
years.  For  in  the  old  loving  big-brotherly  way, 
he  began  to  play  the  host  as  of  yore,  to  heap 
my  plate  with  good  things,  and  to  fill  my  glass 
with  cheerful  assiduity.  "I'm  afraid  you  must 
often  go  hungry  without  me  to  help  you,  old 
boy",  he  said,  with  the  old  kind  smile. 

Still,  I  could  not  speak,  but  at  his  bidding 
I  ate  my  share  of  the  dinner.  He  too  partook, 
though  lightly,  and  soon  we  had  made  an  end 
of  it.  Then  the  waiter  having  cleared  the 
table  and  served  the  coffee,  he  offered  me  a 


no          AN  ATTIC  DREAMER 

cigarette  from  a  full  box — his  old  favorite 
brand,  I  noticed — and  lit  one  himself. 

I  watched  him  mutely,  with  emotions  which 
I  may  not  describe — perhaps  rather  with  a 
tense  suspension  of  all  emotion,  save  that  of  a 
fearful  expectancy. 

He  spoke :  uYou  thought  of  me  so  lovingly 
and  insistently  to-night,  in  this  place  where  we 
have  often  been  happy  together,  that  I  had  to 
come  to  you.  Love  is  the  one  thing,  you  see, 
that  has  power  to  recall  us  from  the  Shadow." 

He  paused,  and  the  flute-like  laughter  of 
women  rose  high  above  the  surrounding  hum 
of  talk  and  the  surded  strains  of  the  orchestra. 
There  came  into  his  eye  a  light  I  well  knew. 

Nodding  his  head  whence  the  laughter  had 
proceeded,  he  went  on: 

"The  keenest  part  of  your  regret  for  me,  my 
friend,  is  that  I  who  loved  that  so  much  should 
have  had  to  die  in  the  flower  of  rny  youth."  .  .  . 

Even  as  he  spoke  my  mind  like  lightning 
overran  his  brief  career.  I  saw  him  as  he  was 
when  he  came  from  the  rugged  North  to  the 
Big  Town,  a  young  giant  in  his  health  and 
strength,  and  in  his  eager  appetite  for  pleasure. 
I  marked  in  him  that  terrible  passion  for 
women  to  which  so  many  splendid  and  gener- 


IN  THE  RED  ROOM  in 

ous  natures  are  sacrificed;  that  craving  for  ac 
tion  and  excitement  which  eats  the  sword  in 
the  scabbard;  that  tiger  thirst  for1  the  en 
chanted  Goblet  of  Life  which  would  drain  all 
to  the  dregs  at  a  single  draught;  that  devouring 
energy  which  knows  no  rest  but  with  daring 
hand  would  tear  aside  the  curtain  betwixt  day 
and  day. 

He  went  on  as  if  I  had  spoken  my  thoughts 
aloud:  "Yes,  there  is  nothing  of  all  this  about 
us  but  I  have  had,  my  boy,  and  good  measure- 
as  you  were  thinking.  Life  owes  me  nothing, 
even  though  I  did  close  my  account  at  thirty; 
I  lived  every  minute  of  my  time — got  all  there 
was  coming  to  me  or  to  any  man.  No  regrets ! 
If  I  could  come  back  for  keeps  I  would  not  live 
otherwise,  do  otherwise,  than  I  have  lived  and 
done.  Excepting,  perhaps,  that  I  would  not 
make  such  a  hurried  job  of  it.  Yes,  that  was 
my  mistake,  but  you  are  not  to  pity  me  on  this 
account.  For  what  matter  a  few  years  more 
or  less,  a  few  dinners  more  or  less — aye,  a  few 
passions,  more  or  less,  the  best  and  only  per 
manently  alluring  pleasure  that  life  can  offer? 
The  end  is  the  same,  and  the  end  comes  as 
surely  to  him  who  has  outlived  his  digestion  and 
his  capacity  for  enjoyment  as  to  him  who,  like 


ii2  AN  ATTIC  DREAMER 

me,  dies  with  every  power  and  every  appetite 
at  the  full." 

For  a  moment  I  took  my  eyes  from  my  Guest 
and  looked  anxiously  about  to  assure  myself 
that  nobody  was  listening  to  this  confession  of 
the  Dead.  As  before,  we  seemed  not  to  attract 
any  special  attention.  Our  nearest  neighbors, 
a  man  and  a  young  woman  a  little  the  worse  for 
wine,  hardly  deigned  us  a  glance,  and  were  cer 
tainly  occupied  with  anything  but  spiritual  af 
fairs.  This  bit  of  the  universal  human  comedy 
was  repeated  here  and  there  about  the  room. 
Many  diners  had  gone,  and  with  each  depar 
ture  the  scattered  lovers  seemed  to  take  on 
fresh  courage  and  confidence.  The  orchestra 
continued  to  play  intermittently  and  was  ap 
plauded  ever  the  more  wildly  by  the  still  linger 
ing  guests. 

All  this  I  saw  in  the  space  of  less  than  a  sec 
ond  or  two  during  which  my  eyes  had  left  his 
face. 

He  continued:  uYou  have  grieved  too  much, 
dear  old  boy,  over  the  thought  that  I  was 
cheated,  or  cheated  myself  of  my  due  share  of 
life.  The  cowards  who  dared  not  live,  the 
weaklings  whose  fill  of  life  was  starvation  and 
death  to  me,  found  a  text  and  a  moral  in  my 


IN  THE  RED  ROOM  113 

fate.  Let  not  this  be  your  thought,  my  friend, 
when  you  sit  here  alone  in  the  Red  Room  and 
pledge  me  in  old  Bordeaux.  Think  rather  that 
I  fulfilled  my  life,  won  every  prize  of  my  desire, 
tasted  every  joy,  scorned  every  fear,  and  died 
in  the  flush  of  victory!"  .  .  . 

As  he  said  these  last  words  his  voice  sounded 
like  the  distant  note  of  a  silver  clarion.  Could 
it  be  possible  that  he  was  unheard  by  the  neigh 
boring  diners?  Again  I  stole  a  fearful  glance 
about  the  room. 

Evidently  nobody  was  concerned  with  us  in 
the  now  thinned-out  company.  The  hour  was 
late.  Leaning  against  the  wall,  at  a  little  dis 
tance,  was  our  waiter,  quietly  observant  of  us, 
as  I  thought,  but  not  importunate  with  his  at 
tentions. 

With  a  feeling  of  relief  I  turned  again  to 
my  Visitor.  He  was  gone! — but  for  some  mo 
ments  my  bewilderment  and  stupefaction  were 
such  that  I  could  not  remove  my  eyes  from  the 
vacant  chair  where  he  had  been  seated  an  in 
stant  before. 

I  must  have  cried  out,  recovering  my  speech, 
for  I  awoke  as  from  a  trance  to  see  that  some 
near-by  people  were  looking  toward  me  in  a 


n4          AN  ATTIC  DREAMER 

surprised  fashion.  In  the  same  moment  the 
waiter  came  hastily  forward. 

uDid  Monsieur  call?  Is  anything  the  mat 
ter  with  Monsieur?" 

"No,  no,"  I  managed  to  articulate,  my  pres 
ence  of  mind  returning  at  sight  of  those  staring 
faces;  "what  should  be  the  matter?  Just  bring 
me  a  pony  of  brandy — and  the  bill." 

He  was  back  in  a  moment  with  the  liquor, 
and  having  figured  out  the  bill,  laid  it  face  down 
on  the  table  before  me. 

I  tossed  off  the  brandy,  thinking  that  I  had 
just  had  the  strangest  hallucination  that  ever 
sprang  from  a  few  glasses  of  old  Bordeaux, 
and  unable  to  account  for  it  upon  any  theory 
of  my  previous  experience,  or  temperament,  or 
constitution. 

Then  I  took  up  the  dinner  check  and,  sur 
prised  at  the  amount,  called  the  waiter. 

"Haven't  you  made  a  mistake?"  I  asked, 
indicating  the  charge. 

"But  .  .  .  pardon! — the  other  gentleman. 
Monsieur  is  paying  for  two,"  said  the  waiter. 


VI 

SAINT   MARK  * 

RE-ENTER  the  Sieur  de  Conte !  .  .  . 
Our  gallant  old  friend  makes  as 
knightly  a  show  as  of  yore  when  first 
he  rode  into  the  lists  and  pledged  his  fealty 
to  the  stainless  Maid.  But  alas!  his  hair  that 
rivalled  the  rutilant  mane  of  Mars,  is  now 
white  as  carded  wool.  Yet  has  that  eye  lost 
nothing  of  its  old  fire,  and  the  years  have  but 
fetched  new  strength  and  cunning  to  his  hand. 
And  methinks  the  Sieur  fights  with  a  tempered 
skill  and  a  wary  shrewdness  that  were  not  al 
ways  his  in  the  old  days — by  my  halidom,  I 
would  not  care  to  be  the  Holy  Council  at  Rome 
with  such  a  champion  pitted  against  me !  For 
indeed  the  Holy  Council  may  pow-wow  as  long 
or  as  short  as  may  please  their  holinesses — the 

*This  essay  was  written  before  the  Beatification  of  the 
Maid  (Beatification  is  not  Canonization),  but  the  fact  does 
not  necessarily  call  for  any  change  in  what  I  have  written. 
See  also  the  article  on  "The  Maid"  in  the  Author's  "NEW 
ADVENTURES." 

"5 


n6  AN  ATTIC  DREAMER 

world  at  the  challenge  of  the  Sieur  de  Conte, 
has  awarded  the  crown  of  saintship  to  Joan  of 
Arc.  The  living  voice,  the  magic  pen  of  the 
Sieur  de  Conte  are  worth  all  their  musty  raking 
from  the  past;  are  more  than  worth  their  as 
sumed  authority  to  decide  the  question.  If  the 
Holy  Fathers  have  dropped  the  matter  for  the 
nonce,  as  rumor  now  declares,  they  have  but 
done  the  thing  that  might  have  been  expected 
of  them.  The  Church  is  ever  too  wise  to  in 
vite  defeat,  too  polite  to  issue  a  dead-letter, 
too  strong  in  its  divine  right  to  surrender  on 
heretic  compulsion.  Besides,  it  is  here  to  stay 
forever;  and  shall  it  be  moved  for  a  chit  of  a 
girl  who  has  been  dead  less  than  five  hundred 
years? — Tut,  tut, — there  is  always  plenty  of 
time! 

The  Sieur  de  Conte  (otherwise  Mark 
Twain)  in  all  that  he  has  written  on  the  sub 
ject,  has  failed  to  point  out  one  extraordinary 
fact  with  regard  to  Joan  of  Arc.  I  am  glad 
that  he  has  left  it  to  me.  It  is  this :  Since  that 
fearful  day  in  Rouen  when  she  was  led  to  her 
martyrdom  by  fire,  she  has  been  the  glory  of 
the  faith  and  the  shame  of  the  Church.  That 
is  why  she  has  waited  so  long  for  the  formal 
warrant  of  saintship.  That  is  why  the  Devil's 


SAINT  MARK  117 

Advocate  has  so  far  prevailed  to  deny  her  on 
earth  the  crown  she  wears  in  Heaven.* 

Do  not  think  this  a  musty  old  question  which 
interests  only  a  few  droning  priests  sitting  in  a 
back  room  of  the  Vatican,  and  here  and  there 
a  poetic  idealist  like  the  Sieur  de  Conte.  By  no 
means ! — it  is  a  question  as  vital  as  the  fame 
of  the  Maid  herself,  calling  forth  champions 
and  antagonists  in  every  age.  It  is  a  plague- 
sore  in  the  side  of  the  Church — put  your  finger 
there !  It  never  has  been  settled  because  it 
never  could  and  never  can  be  settled  to  the 
credit  of  the  Church.  Also  I  believe  it  is  bound 
up  with  the  eternal  question  of  liberty,  in  whose 
holy  cause  the  Maid  fought  and  suffered. 

Joan  of  Arc  was  done  to  death  by  the  priests 
and  theologians  of  the  day,  urged  on  by  the 
civil  power  in  the  hands  of  her  French  and 
English  enemies.  I  am  aware  that  her  death  is 
not  chargeable,  in  a  direct  sense,  to  the  Church, 
and  it  is  deemed  likely  by  Lamartine  that  she 
would  have  been  saved,  had  she  known  enough 
to  appeal  directly  to  Rome.  I  am  aware  that, 
short  of  canonization,  the  Church  has  done 
what  it  could  to  make  amends  to  the  memory 
of  Joan  of  Arc.  To  give  her  the  crown  of 

*  Joan  was  canonized  in  May,  1920. 


n8  AN  ATTIC  DREAMER 

saintship  now,  would  not  restore  the  credit  of 
the  Church,  but  would  rather  irreparably  dam 
age  it  in  the  eyes  of  the  world.  For  the  two 
or  three  hundred  priests  and  theologians  who 
judged  the  Maid,  as  well  as  the  godly  men  of 
the  Inquisition  of  Paris  who  damned  her  as  a 
child  of  the  Devil,  were  in  loyal  communion 
with  the  Church,  and  were,  in  fact,  part  of  its 
machinery.  Still,  it  is  certain  that  the  Church, 
in  its  true  representative  and  executive  charac 
ter,*  did  not  incur  the  guilt  and  odium  of 
Joan's  death.  But  the  whole  system  arrogat 
ing  divine  powers  and  claiming  the  right  to 
draw  supernatural  warrants,  was  involved  in 
the  trial  and  murder  of  the  Maid;  was  judged 
by  the  measure  with  which  it  meted  to  her; 
and  is  now  of  a  truth  dead  forever  to  the  more 
enlightened  part  of  mankind.  The  blood  of 
the  martyrs  is  the  seed  of  liberty ! 

A  certain  set  of  apologists  on  behalf  of  the 
Church  try  to  cast  all  the  blame  of  Joan's  per 
secution  and  death  upon  the  English.  To  be 
sure,  the  English  had  the  best  right  to  hate  her 
and  to  seek  her  destruction,  for  had  she  not 
beaten  them  in  many  battles  and  all  but  driven 
them  out  of  the  fair  land  of  France,  which 

*I.e.t  the  central  authority  at  Rome. 


SAINT  MARK  119 

they  had  come  to  regard  as  their  own?  But 
let  us  be  fair;  her  own  countrymen  shared  to 
the  full  in  the  guilt  and  the  shame  of  her  death 
— nothing  can  clear  them  of  that!  Besides, 
we  are  not  to  forget  that  both  French  and 
English  were  in  that  day  of  the  same  religious 
faith.  Not  a  single  heretic  took  part  in  the 
proceedings  against  Joan,  from  the  holy  clerics 
of  the  Inquisition  of  Paris  who  pronounced 
anathema  upon  her,  to  Bishop  Cauchon,  that 
zealous  prototype  of  Fouquier  Tinville,  who 
sought  her  blood  openly  and  thirsted  for  it  with 
an  eager  relish  that  shocked  even  his  fellow 
judges;  or  the  rude  soldiers  who  kept  guard 
within  her  cell  day  and  night,  and  probably 
caused  her  as  much  anguish,  at  times,  as  the 
threat  of  the  fire.  They  were  all  believers  in 
the  One  True  Faith,  and  the  stain  of  her  inno 
cent  blood  is  upon  every  one  of  them,  French 
and  English.  Make  no  mistake  about  that! 

Indeed,  we  can  not  go  astray  as  to  the  facts, 
and  these  themselves  can  not  be  twisted  to  the 
purpose  of  special  pleading;  for  the  whole  plan 
of  the  murder  of  Joan  of  Arc,  the  carefully 
marked  steps  by  which  it  was  unrelentingly 
carried  out,  the  heroic  but  ineffectual  struggles 
of  the  victim,  the  unspeakable  devices  resorted 


120  AN  ATTIC  DREAMER 

to,  in  order  to  circumvent  and  destroy  her,  the 
pitiless,  unhalting  purpose  of  her  prosecutors, 
marked  as  with  a  pencil  of  red, — are  laid  bare 
to  us,  by  the  sworn  testimony  of  eye-witnesses, 
with  a  fulness  of  detail  and  a  veracity  of  state 
ment  which  leave  hardly  a  question  to  be  asked 
or  a  doubt  to  be  solved.  It  is  all  there — the 
conspiracy  of  power,  learning  and  holiness 
(God  save  the  mark!)  against  one  brave,  help 
less,  ignorant,  innocent  girl.  We  see  the 
suavely  ferocious  Cauchon  pressing  her  with 
both  his  holy  hands  toward  the  scaffold — he 
was  excommunicated  some  years  afterward,  but 
it  didn't  save  the  Church's  credit.  We  see  that 
formidable  array  of  priests  setting  the  utmost 
skill  of  their  wits,  the  deepest  resources  of  their 
cunning,  against  a  simple  country  girl  who 
could  neither  read  nor  write  a  name  which  is 
now  one  of  the  best  known  on  the  earth;  try 
ing  by  every  art  of  casuistry  to  wrest  or  sur 
prise  from  her  an  admission  that  should  send 
her  to  the  flames. 

Let  us  be  just:  they  were  not  all  equally 
guilty,  not  all  equally  intent  on  the  slaughter 
of  the  innocent  lamb  before  them.  Not  one 
was  so  bad  as  the  monster  Cauchon,  and  to  be 
strictly  fair  even  to  that  consecrated  beast,  not 


SAINT  MARK  121 

one  had  Cauchon's  motive — but  the  fact  does 
not  save  the  Church's  credit.  Some  of  those 
priests  had  kind  hearts  and  would  gladly  have 
sent  the  child  home  to  her  mother;  but  they 
lacked  the  power.  Besides,  they  were  cap 
tives  themselves,  bound  hand  and  foot  with  the 
fetters  of  superstition  and  devil-born  lunacy, 
misnamed  religious  fervor;  daunted  by  mon 
strous  ignorance,  and  mythic  fears  of  Hell  and 
darkness,  chrisomed  and  holy-watered  into  a 
pretence  of  light  and  knowledge — aye,  they 
were  cowering  slaves,  branded  and  obedient  to 
the  lash,  and  she  standing  free  and  enfran 
chised  in  her  chains! 

Though  I  am  perhaps  the  first  to  call  atten 
tion  to  the  matter,  there  are  many  points  of 
likeness  between  the  trial  of  Jesus  Christ  and 
the  trial  of  Joan  of  Arc.  They  were  both  sold 
for  a  price  of  silver.  Both  were  martyrs  of 
liberty.  Both  perished  through  a  combination 
of  forces  political  and  priestly.  Christ  had 
Caiaphas;  Joan  had  Cauchon,  something  the 
worst  of  it.  The  chief  accusers,  the  head 
prosecutors  of  each  were  priests,  and  as  the 
Jews  cried  out  at  the  trial  of  Jesus,  "His  blood 
be  upon  us  and  upon  our  children!" — so  might 
the  priests  have  cried  out  at  the  condemnation 


122  AN  ATTIC  DREAMER 

of  Joan,  uHer  blood  be  upon  us  and  upon  the 
Church!"  It  is  there  yet — the  excommunica 
tion  of  Cauchon  and  the  reversal  of  the  Judg 
ment  have  not  removed  it.  Something  more 
will  have  to  be  done  ere  that  Great  Wrong  can 
be  righted. 

But  having  shown  the  great  similarity  mark 
ing  the  trials  of  Jesus  Christ  and  Joan  of  Arc, 
I  now  wish  to  call  attention  to  a  most  striking 
point  of  unlikeness,  which  is  even  more  sug 
gestive  than  the  resemblance  shown.  It  is  this: 
among  the  judges  of  Joan  of  Arc — priests  as 
they  were  or  deemed  themselves  to  be,  of  the 
Christ  of  love  and  mercy — there  was  none  so 
merciful  as  Pontius  Pilate,  whose  memory  is 
not  held  in  much  honor  by  the  Christian  world; 
not  one  had  the  courage  or  the  humanity  to 
wash  his  hands  of  the  intended  murder.  Some 
desired  it  out  of  their  blind  ignorance  and  cruel 
fanaticism;  many  no  doubt  regretted  it,  as  a 
severe  but  salutary  act  of  faith;  all  consented 
to  it!  The  responsibility  is  thus  landed 
squarely  where  it  belongs,  on  the  official  reli 
gion  which  was  then  in  league  with  the  secular 
arm.  If  there  had  been  the  least  available 
doubt  as  to  that — if  the  damning  record  were 
not  in  black  and  white,  attested  by  the  solemn 


SAINT  MARK  123 

oaths  of  so  many  witnesses  of  or  participants  in 
the  trial — the  Church  would  long  ago,  for  her 
own  credit,  have  granted  the  saintship  of  Joan 
of  Arc,  and  to-day  the  altars  of  the  Maid  of 
Orleans  would  flame  in  a  hundred  lands.  But 
perhaps,  since  the  Eternal  Church  does  not 
count  years  as  men  count  them,  it  is  yet  some 
ages  too  soon  to  raise  an  altar  to  the  Second 
Great  Martyr  of  Liberty.  And  maybe  this  is 
a  fortunate  thing  for  Liberty  and  the  Maid, 
for  on  the  day  that  the  Church  makes  Joan  of 
Arc  wholly  her  own,  on  that  day  she  will  step 
down  from  the  unexampled  place  she  has  so 
long  held  in  the  love  and  pity  and  worship  of 
mankind.*  Such  a  consummation  would  not,  I 
am  sure,  be  agreeable  to  her  leal  knight  and 
devoted  champion,  the  Sieur  de  Conte  Mark 
Twain. 


IN  the  wide  court  of  Heaven,  on  any  of  these 
fine  days,  you  may  see — if  God  has  given 
you  sight  above  your  eyes — a  Maid  who  has 
been   a  maiden  now  during  full   five  hundred 

*  It  would  be  a  nice  question  to  decide  how  much  of  the 
world-wide  sentiment  of  affection  and  veneration  for  Joan 
is  due  to  the  fact  that  she  has  always  been  regarded  at  a 
victim  of  the  Church, 


i24  AN  ATTIC  DREAMER 

years.  Her  hair  is  the  color  of  the  corn-silk 
at  harvest-time,  and  her  eyes  of  the  early 
for-get-me-not.  She  is  slender  as  of  old  when, 
clad  in  shining  armor  and  mounted  on  her  milk- 
white  steed,  she  led  the  long  dispirited  war 
riors  of  France  to  victory,  or  upheld  her  won 
drous  standard  at  the  coronation  of  her  King. 
Often  she  may  be  seen  leaning  over  the  crystal 
battlements,  chin  on  hand  and  looking  down 
with  pensive  gaze  on  France,  and  Orleans,  and 
Domremy,  and  Rouen  whence  her  soul,  like  a 
white  dove,  ascended  in  the  flame  of  her  coun 
try's  cruel  ingratitude. 

But  sometimes  she  turns  her  glance  from 
scenes  like  these,  charged  with  sweet  and  ter 
rible  memories,  and  looks  down  with  loving 
intentness  toward  a  certain  spot  on  earth  where 
an  old  white-haired  man  raises  eyes  of  love  and 
almost  worship  to  hers.  They  see  and  salute 
each  other — oh,  be  sure  of  that!  The  old  man 
was  many  years  younger  when  they  first  be 
came  acquainted,  but  the  Maid  is  always  the 
same  age,  for  they  grow  no  older  in  Heaven. 
Who  shall  explain  the  spell  (since  the  Sieur  de 
Conte  will  not  confess  his  dreams)  that  has 
joined  in  a  perfect  love  and  understanding  these 
two  children  of  Nature,  separated  by  the  dif- 


SAINT  MARK  125 

ference  of  race  and  the  shoreless  gulf  of  five 
hundred  years?  Who  can  but  wonder  at  the 
enchanting  touch  of  a  white  hand  from  out  the 
past  which  has  turned  the  bold  scoffer  and 
jeerer,  the  wild  man  of  the  river  and  the  mining 
camps,  into  such  a  knight  as  was  rarely  seen 
in  the  most  gracious  days  of  chivalry?  And  to 
see  him  now,  when  he  should  be  taking  the  rest 
he  has  so  gloriously  earned,  still  eager  to  bat 
tle  in  her  cause,  daring  the  world  to  the  onset, 
fighting  for  her  with  the  passionate  heart  of 
youth,  pleading  for  her  with  a  burning  zeal,  as 
if  in  the  five  centuries  that  have  rolled  away 
since  her  death  no  other  cause  worthy  to  be 
named  with  hers  has  appealed  to  the  award 
of  sword  or  pen — to  see  this  rightly  and  with 
eyes  cleared  for  the  perception  of  that  Truth 
which  is  the  only  thing  really  precious  in  the 
world,  is  to  rejoice  at  the  finest  spectacle  that 
has  been  given  to  the  wondering  eyes  of  men 
in  our  day. 

Whether  the  brave  old  knight  will  yet  win 
the  whole  world  over  to  her  side,  I  can  not 
say,  though  I  think  he  will,  if  he  be  given  time 
enough;  but,  at  any  rate,  he  has  already  made 
sure  of  all  kind  and  feeling  hearts.  I  believe 
his  devotion  to  Joan  of  Arc  is  the  finest  and 


iz6          AN  ATTIC  DREAMER 

most  ideal  poem  of  our  age — an  age,  to  be  sure, 
which  has  known  too  little  poetry,  and  which 
has  never  thought  of  looking  to  the  Sieur  de 
Conte  to  supply  it.  And  I  believe,  further, 
that  the  Book  of  the  Ideal  contains  the  story 
of  no  love  more  pure  and  beautiful  than  this 
which  unites  the  Old  Man  and  the  Maid.* 

This  essay  (entitled  "Saint  Mark")  was  first  published 
in  the  Papyrus  in  1904,  and  drew  from  our  glorious  Mark 
Twain  the  following: 

"It  is  strong  and  eloquent  and  beautiful.  The  inspiration 
which  tipped  your  pen  with  fire  is  from  the  Maid.  After  all 
these  centuries  that  force  still  lives — lives  and  grows,  I 
think. 

"I  was  struck  by  a  remark  of  yours  (and  I  agree  with  it) 
that  from  the  day  of  the  martyrdom  the  Maid  has  been  the 
'glory  of  the  faith  and  the  shame  of  the  Church.' 

"I  was  hoping  she  would  never  be  canonized.  One  doesn't 
build  monuments  to  Adam:  he  is  a  monument  himself." 


VII 

THE    POET'S   ATONEMENT 

IT  HARDLY  seems  a  decade  since  the  dis 
grace,  the  trial  and  sentence  of  Oscar 
Wilde.  His  death  followed  so  close  upon 
his  punishment  as  to  give  the  deepest  tragic 
value  to  the  lesson  of  his  fall.  There  was  in 
truth  nothing  left  him  to  do  but  die,  after  he 
had  penned  the  most  poignantly  pathetic  poem 
and  the  most  strangely  moving  confession 
(which  is  yet  a  subtle  vindication)  that  have 
been  given  to  the  world  since  the  noon  of 
Byron's  fame. 

Until  the  present  hour  *  the  world  has  with 
held  its  pity  from  that  tragedy,  as  complete  in 
all  its  features  as  the  Greek  conscience  would 
have  exacted, — and  Oscar  Wilde  has  stood  be 
yond  the  pale  of  human  sympathy.  Only 
seemed  to  stand,  however,  for  there  are  many 
signs  of  the  reaction,  the  better  judgment  which 
never  delays  long  behind  the  severest  condem- 

*  First  published   about   1906. 
127 


128  AN  ATTIC  DREAMER 

nation  of  the  public  voice  when,  as  in  this  case, 
the  circumstances  justify  an  appeal  to  the 
higher  mercy  and  humanity. 

Socially,  Oscar  Wilde  was  executed,  and  for 
a  brief  time  it  seemed  as  if  his  name  would 
stand  only  in  the  calendar  of  the  infamous. 
But  men  presently  remembered  that  he  was  a 
genius,  a  literary  artist  of  almost  unique  dis 
tinction  among  English  writers,  a  wit  whose 
talent  for  paradox  and  delicately  perverse 
fancy  had  yielded  the  world  a  pure  treasure 
of  delight.  In  the  first  hue-and-cry  of  his  dis 
grace,  the  British  public — and  to  a  large  extent, 
the  American  public  also — had  taken  up  moral 
cudgels  not  merely  against  the  man  himself, 
but  against  the  writer.  His  plays  were  with 
drawn  from  the  theatres,  his  writings  from 
the  libraries  and  bookstalls,  and  his  name  was 
anathema  wherever  British  respectability  wields 
its  leaden  mace.  But  though  you  can  pass  sen 
tence  of  social  death  upon  a  man,  you  can  not 
execute  a  Book!  You  can  not  lay  your  hang 
man's  hands  upon  an  Idea,  and  all  the  edicts  of 
Philistinism  are  powerless  against  it.  For  true 
genius  is  the  rarest  and  most  precious  thing  in 
the  world,  and  God  has  wisely  ordained  that 
the  malice  or  stupidity  of  men  shall  not  destroy 


THE  POET'S  ATONEMENT     129 

it.  And  this  the  world  sees  to  be  just,  when  it 
has  had  time  to  weigh  the  matter,  as  in  the 
present  instance. 

Oscar  Wilde  went  to  his  prison  with  the 
burden  of  such  shame  and  reprobation  as  has 
never  been  laid  upon  a  literary  man  of  equal 
eminence.  Not  a  voice  was  raised  for  him — 
the  starkness  of  his  guilt  silenced  even  his 
closest  friends  and  warmest  admirers.  The 
world  at  large  approved  of  his  punishment. 
That  small  portion  of  the  world  which  is  loth 
to  see  the  suffering  of  any  sinner,  was  revolted 
by  the  nature  of  his  offence  and  turned  away 
without  a  word;  the  sin  of  Oscar  Wilde  claimed 
no  charity  and  permitted  of  no  discussion.  Had 
his  crime  been  murder  itself,  his  fame  and 
genius  would  have  raised  up  defenders  on  every 
hand.  As  it  was,  all  mouths  were  stopped,  and 
the  man  went  broken-hearted  to  his  doom. 

But  while  his  body  lay  in  prison,  the  children 
of  his  mind  pleaded  for  him,  and  such  is  the 
invincible  appeal  of  genius,  the  heart  of  the 
world  began  to  be  troubled  in  despite  of  itself. 
His  books  came  slowly  forth  from  their  hiding- 
places;  his  name  was  restored  here  and  there 
to  a  catalogue;  a  little  emotion  of  pity  was 
awakened  in  his  favor.  Then  from  his  prison 


130          AN  ATTIC  DREAMER 

cell  arose  a  cry  of  soul-anguish,  of  utter  pa 
thos,  of  supreme  expiation,  which  stirred  the 
heart  of  pity  to  its  depths.  The  feigner  was 
at  last  believed  when  the  world  had  made  sure 
of  the  accents  of  his  agony  and  could  put  its 
finger  in  each  of  his  wounds.  Society  had  sen 
tenced  this  poet:  the  poet  both  sentenced  and 
forgave  society,  in  "The  Ballad  of  Reading 
Gaol",  thus  achieving  the  most  original  para 
dox  of  his  fantastic  genius  and  throwing  about 
his  shame  something  of  the  halo  of  martyrdom. 
He  did  more  than  this,  in  the  judgment  of  his 
fellow  artists — he  purchased  his  redemption 
and  snatched  his  name  from  the  mire  of  infamy 
into  which  it  had  been  cast.  Strange  how  the 
world  applauded  the  triumphant  genius  which 
only  a  little  while  before  it  had  condemned  to 
ignominy  and  silence ! 

II 

THE  utter  and  incredible  completeness  of 
Wilde's  disgrace  satisfies  the  artistic 
sense,  which  is  never  content  with  half-results. 
We  know  that  it  afforded  this  kind  of  satisfac 
tion  to  the  victim  himself,  exigent  of  artistic 
effects  even  in  his  catastrophe — and  the  proof 
of  it  is  "De  Profundis".  This  book  will  take 


THE  POET'S  ATONEMENT     131 

rank  with  the  really  memorable  human  docu 
ments.  It  is  a  true  cry  of  the  heart,  a  sincere 
utterance  of  the  spiritual  depths  of  this  man's 
nature,  when  the  angels  of  sorrow  had  troubled 
the  pool.  The  only  thing  that  seems  to  militate 
against  its  acceptance  as  such,  is  the  unfailing 
presence  of  that  consummate  literary  art,  too 
conscious  of  itself,  which,  as  in  all  the  author's 
work  save  "The  Ballad  of  Reading  Gaol", 
draws  us  constantly  from  the  substance  to  the 
form.  Many  persons  of  critical  acumen  say 
they  can  not  see  the  penitent  for  the  artist. 
The  texture  of  the  sackcloth  is  too  exquisitely 
wrought  and  too  manifestly  of  the  loom  that 
gave  us  "Dorian  Gray",  "Salome",  and  the 
rest.  How  could  a  man  stricken  unto  death 
with  grief  and  shame  so  occupy  himself  with 
the  vanity  of  style, — a  dilettante  even  in  the 
hour  when  fate  was  crushing  him  with  its 
heaviest  blows?  Does  not  this  wonderful 
piece  of  work,  lambent  with  all  the  rays  of  his 
lawless  genius,  show  the  artificial  core  of  the 
man  as  nothing  that  even  he  ever  did  before? 
And  what  is  the  spiritual  value  of  a  "confes 
sion"  which  is  so  obviously  a  literary  tour  de 
force;  in  which  the  plain  and  the  simple  are 


132  AN  ATTIC  DREAMER 

avoided  with  the  "precious",  lapidary  art  of  a 
prince  of  decadents? 

So  say,  or  seem  to  say,  the  critics.  For  my 
self,  I  can  accept  as  authentic  Wilde's  testament 
of  sorrow,  even  though  it  be  written  in  a  style 
which  often  dazzles  with  beauty,  surprises  with 
paradox,  and  sometimes  intoxicates  with  the 
rapture  of  the  inevitable  artist.  He  could  not 
teach  his  hand  to  unlearn  its  cunning,  strive  as 
he  might.  Like  Narcissus  wondering  at  his 
own  beauty  in  the  fountain,  no  sooner  had  he 
begun  to  tell  the  tale  of  his  sorrow  than  the 
loveliness  of  his  words  seized  upon  him,  and 
the  sorrow  that  found  such  expression  seemed 
a  thing  almost  to  be  desired. 

So  when  Oscar  Wilde  took  up  the  pen  in  his 
prison  solitude  to  make  men  weep,  he  did  that 
indeed,  but  too  soon  he  delighted  them  as  of 
yore.  Art,  his  adored  mistress,  whispered  her 
thrilling  consolations  to  the  poor  castaway — 
they  had  taken  all  from  him — liberty,  honor, 
wealth,  fame,  mother,  wife,  children,  and  shut 
him  up  in  an  iron  hell,  but  by  God !  they  should 
not  take  her!  With  this  little  pen  in  hand  they 
were  all  under  his  feet, — solemn  judge,  stolid 
jury,  the  beast  of  many  heads,  and  the  whited 
British  Philistia.  Let  them  come  on  now! — 


THE  POET'S  ATONEMENT     133 

But  soft,  the  poet's  anger  is  gone  in  a  moment, 
for  Beauty,  faithful  to  one  who  had  loved  her 
t'other  side  o'  madness,  comes  and  fills  his 
narrow  cell  with  her  adorable  presence,  bring 
ing  the  glory  of  the  sweet  world  he  has  lost, — 
the  breath  of  dawn,  the  scented  hush  of  sum 
mer  nights,  the  peace  of  April  rains,  the  pag 
eant  of  the  Autumn  lands,  the  changeful  won 
der  of  the  sea.  Imagination  brushes  away  his 
bounds  of  stone  and  steel  to  give  him  all  her 
largess  of  the  past;  gracious  figures  of  poesy 
and  romance  known  and  loved  from  his  sinless 
youth  (the  man  is  always  an  artist,  but  you  see  1 
he  can  weep)  ;  the  elect  company  of  classic  ages 
to  whom  his  soul  does  reverence  and  who  seem 
not  to  scorn  him;  the  fair  heroines  of  immortal 
story  who  in  the  old  days,  as  his  dreams  so 
often  told  him,  had  deemed  him  worthy  of 
their  love — he  would  kneel  at  their  white  feet 
now,  but  their  sweet  glances  carry  no  rebuke; 
the  kind  poets,  his  beloved  masters  in  Apollo, 
who  bend  upon  him  no  alienated  gaze;  the  he 
roes,  the  sages  who  had  inspired  his  boyish 
heart,  the  sceptred  and  mighty  sons  of  genius 
who  had  roused  in  him  a  passion  for  fame — all 
come  thronging  at  the  summons  of  memory  and 
fancy — a  far  dearer  and  better  world  than  that 


134          AN  ATTIC  DREAMER 

which  had  denied,  cursed  and  condemned  him, 
and  which  he  was  to  know  no  more. 

Then,  last  of  all,  when  these  fair  and  noble 
guests  were  gone,  and  the  glow  of  their  visita 
tion  had  died  out  into  the  old  bitter  loneliness 
and  sorrow,  there  came  One  whose  smile  had 
the  brightness  of  the  sun  and  the  seven  stars. 
And  the  poor  prisoner  of  sin  cast  himself  down 
at  the  feet  of  the  Presence,  as  unworthy  to 
look  upon  that  divine  radiancy,  and  the  foun 
tains  of  his  heart  were  broken  up  as  never  be 
fore.  Yet  in  his  weeping  he  heard  a  Voice 
which  said,  "Thy  sin  and  sorrow  are  equal,  and 
thou  hast  still  but  a  little  way  to  go.  Come !" 

Then  rose  up  the  sinner  and  fared  forth  of 
the  spirit  with  Christ  to  __,mmaus.  .  .  . 

And  men  will  yet  say  that  the  words  which 
the  sinner  wrote  of  that  Vision  have  saved  his 
soul  (which  not  long  thereafter  was  demanded 
of  him)  and  sweetened  his  fame  forever.  But 
the  critics  who  forget  the  adjuration,  "Judge 
not  lest  ye  be  judged",  cry  out  that  the  sinner 
is  never  to  be  trusted  in  these  matters,  because 
he  writes  so  well!  God,  however,  is  kinder 
than  men  or  critics.  He  will  forgive  the  poor 
poet,  in  spite  of  his  beautiful  style. 


VIII 

CHILDREN    OF    THE    AGE 

I  HAVE  been  reading  the  "Last  Letters  of 
Aubrey  Beardsley".  A  strange  book,  full 
of  a  sort  of  macabre  interest.  Not  really 
a  book,  and  yet  peculiarly  suggestive  as  an  end- 
of-the-century  document.  The  soul  of  Beards- 
ley  here  exposed  with  a  kind  of  abnormal 
frankness  that  somehow  recalls  the  very  style 
of  art  by  which  he  shocked  and  captured  the 
world's  regard.  And  the  obvious  purpose  of  it 
all,  to  show  how  he  attained  peace  of  the  spirit 
and  a  quiet  grave  in  his  early  manhood. 

Poor  Beardsley  was  bitten  deep  with  the 
malady  of  his  age — he  ranks  with  the  most  in 
teresting,  though  not,  of  course,  the  greatest 
of  its  victims.  He  died  under  thirty,  and  his 
name  is  known  to  thousands  who  know  nothing 
of  his  art  nor  perhaps  of  any  art  whatever. 
To  very  many  his  name  stands  as  a  symbol  of 
degeneracy.  There  is  an  intimate  legend  which 
attaints  him  with  the  scarlet  sins  of  the  newer 
135 


136  AN  ATTIC  DREAMER 

hedonism.  He  is  closely  associated  in  the  pub 
lic  mind  with  the  most  tragically  disgraced 
literary  man  of  modern  times.  In  art  he  was 
a  lawless  genius,  but  a  genius  for  all  that,  else 
the  world  would  not  have  heard  so  much  of 
him.  The  fact  that  counts  is,  that  in  a  very 
brief  life  he  did  much  striking  work,  and  for  a 
time,  at  least,  gave  his  name  to  a  school  of 
imitators.  Whether  his  artistic  influence  was 
for  good  or  evil,  does  not  matter  in  this  view 
of  him — let  the  professors  haggle  about  that. 
What  does  matter  is  the  fact  and  sum  of  his 
accomplishment,  which  justifies  the  continued 
interest  in  his  name. 

One  naturally  associates  with  Beardsley 
other  ill-fated  victims  of  the  age,  such  as  Mau 
passant,  Bastien  Lepage,  Marie  Bashkirtseff, 
Oscar  Wilde,  Ernest  Dowson, — to  cite  no 
more.  They  were  all  martyrs  of  their  own 
talent,  and  martyrs  also  of  that  ravaging 
malady  of  the  heart,  that  devouring  casuistry, 
so  peculiar  to  the  last  quarter  of  the  Nineteenth 
century.  We  may  be  sure  the  disease  was  not 
confined  to  a  few  persons  of  extraordinary 
talent — of  them  we  heard  only  because  of  their 
position  in  the  public  mind,  and  also  because, 
as  artists,  they  were  bound  to  reveal  their  suf- 


CHILDREN  OF  THE  AGE        137 

ferings.  Nay,  we  were  the  more  keenly  inter 
ested  in  their  painful  confessions,  knowing  that 
they  spoke  for  many  condemned  to  bear  their 
agonies  in  silence.  For  the  world  will  soon 
turn  away  from  an  isolated  sufferer,  as  from  a 
freak  on  the  operating  table — let  it  fear  or 
recognize  the  disease  for  its  own  and  it  will 
never  weary  of  seeing  and  hearing.  This 
commonplace  truth  explains,  I  think,  the  great 
and  continuing  interest  which  the  persons  above 
named  have  excited. 

All  of  these  were  unusually  gifted,  whether 
as  artists  or  writers,  and  all  strove  to  fulfill 
their  talents  with  an  almost  suicidal  fury  of  ap 
plication.  It  seemed  as  if  each  had  a  prescience 
of  early  death  and  labored  with  fatal  devotion 
that  the  world  might  not  lose  the  fruit  which 
was  his  to  give.  Generous  sacrifice,  which 
never  fails  to  mark  the  rarest  type  of  genius. 
Maupassant,  perhaps  the  most  gifted,  the  most 
terribly  in  earnest  of  all,  went  to  work  like  a 
demoniac,  pouring  forth  a  whole  literature  of 
plays,  poems,  stories,  romances,  all  in  the  space 
of  ten  years.  Such  fecundity,  coupled  with  an 
artistic  practice  so  admirable  and  a  literary 
conscience  so  exacting,  was  perhaps  never  be 
fore  witnessed  in  the  same  writer.  But  the 


138  AN  ATTIC  DREAMER 

world  presently  learned  a  greater  wonder  still 
— that  this  unwearied  artist  had,  in  those  ten 
years  of  apparently  unremitting  labor,  lived  a 
life  that  was  not  less  full  of  romance,  of  pas 
sion,  of  variety  and  excitement  than  the  crea 
tions  of  his  brain.  He  had  accomplished,  as  it 
were,  a  twofold  suicide — in  life  and  in  art. 

Maupassant  died  mad,  his  brain  worn  out 
by  constant  production,  his  heart  torn  by  the 
malady  of  his  age,  which  we  can  trace  in  so 
many  pages  of  his  work.  But  at  least  he  died 
without  disgrace,  and  in  this  respect  his  fate 
was  far  happier  than  that  of  Oscar  Wilde,  his 
contemporary  and  equal  in  genius,  whose  bril 
liant  career  closed  in  the  darkest  infamy.  Poor 
Wilde  sinned  greatly  no  doubt, — the  English 
courts  settled  that, — though  his  atonement  was 
of  a  piece  with  his  offending.  The  man  dies, 
but  the  artist  lives;  and  Wilde  has  work  to  his 
credit  which  will  long  survive  the  memory  of 
his  tragic  shame. 

In  his  last  wretched  days  Wilde  turned  for 
consolation  to  the  Catholic  Church,  which,  with 
a  deeper  knowledge  of  human  nature  than  her 
rivals  can  understand,  still  makes  the  worst  sin 
ner,  if  repentant,  her  peculiar  care.  Wilde  be 
came  a  Catholic,  and  he  recorded  that  had  he 


CHILDREN  OF  THE  AGE        139 

but  done  so  years  before,  the  world  would  not 
have  been  shocked  by  the  story  of  his  disgrace. 
This  is  less  a  truism  than  a  confession.  At 
any  rate,  one  is  not  sorry  to  know  that  the 
poor,  broken-hearted  wretch  found  sanctuary 
at  the  last,  and  died  in  that  divine  hope  which 
he  has  voiced  in  the  noblest  of  his  poems. 

Like  Wilde,  Beardsley  became  a  Catholic  at 
the  last  when  he  was  under  sentence  of  death 
from  consumption,  and  the  "Letters"  are  ad 
dressed  to  a  worthy  Catholic  priest  who  in 
structed  him  in  the  faith.  Beardsley  was  of 
versatile  talents,  but  he  could  not  fairly  be 
called  a  writer,  and  these  letters  were  obviously 
written  in  perfect  candor  and  with  no  thought 
of  their  ever  meeting  any  eyes  save  the  good 
priest's  for  which  they  were  intended.  All  the 
same  they  are,  as  I  have  already  said,  curiously 
interesting,  and  they  do  not  lack  touches  of 
genuine  insight  and  emotion.  The  fantastic 
artist  grew  very  sober  in  the  shadow  of  death, 
and  the  riot  of  sensuality  in  which  his  genius 
had  formerly  delighted,  was  clean  wiped  from 
his  brain.  Wilde  himself,  in  his  last  days  of 
grace,  might  have  penned  this  sentence : 

"If  Heine  is  the  great  warning,  Pascal  is  the 
great  example  to  all  artists  and  thinkers.  He 


140          AN  ATTIC  DREAMER 

understood  that  to  become  a  Christian  the  man 
of  letters  must  sacrifice  his  gifts,  just  as  Mag 
dalen  sacrificed  her  beauty." 

Strange  language  this,  from  an  end-of-the- 
century  decadent,  whose  achievement  in  art  was 
that  he  had  carried  to  an  extreme  the  sug 
gestions  of  the  wildest  sensualism.  But  per 
haps  it  was  not  the  same  Beardsley  who  made 
the  pictures  to  "Salome"  and  who,  through  the 
most  original,  creative  part  of  his  career, 
worked  like  a  man  in  the  frenzy  of  satyriasis. 
No,  it  was  not  the  same  Beardsley — the  sen 
tence  of  premature  death  had  turned  Pan  into 
a  St.  Anthony. 

Not  long  after  penning  the  words  I  have 
quoted,  Beardsley  made  a  sacrifice  of  his  gifts 
and  was  received  into  the  Catholic  Church. 
Within  a  year  thereafter  he  died.  There  is 
nothing  to  mar  the  moral  of  his  conversion  and 
edifying  change  of  heart,  except  the  reflection 
that,  like  so  many  other  eleventh-hour  peni 
tents,  he  put  off  making  a  sacrifice  of  his  gifts 
until  he  had  no  further  use  for  them.  And  at 
last,  one  can't  help  thinking  that  if  Beardsley 
had  not  made  some  fearfully  immoral  pictures, 
this  book,  with  the  highly  moral  story  of  his 


CHILDREN  OF  THE  AGE        141 

conversion,  would  not  have  been  put  before  the 
world.   .   .  . 

I  have  mentioned  Ernest  Dowson,  a  minor 
poet,  the  singer  of  a  few  exquisite  songs.  Less 
talented  than  the  others,  yet  a  true  child  of  the 
age  and  stricken  at  the  heart  with  the  same 
malady,  Dowson  owes  his  fame  more  to  the 
memorial  written  by  his  friend  and  brother 
poet,  Arthur  Symons,  than  to  his  own  work, 
which  in  bulk  is  of  the  slightest.  His  short 
life  was  frightfully  dissolute — Symons  speaks 
of  his  drunkenness  with  a  kind  of  awe.  It  was 
not  an  occasional  over-indulgence  with  com 
rades  of  his  own  stamp,  passing  the  bottle  too 
often  while  their  heads  grew  hot  and  their 
tongues  loosened;  it  was  not  the  solitary,  sod 
den  boozing  to  which  many  hopeless  drunkards 
are  addicted.  For  weeks  at  a  stretch  Dowson 
would  give  himself  up  to  a  debauch  with  the 
refuse  of  the  London  slums,  and  during  that 
time  he  would  seem  an  utterly  different  being, 
with  scarcely  a  hint  of  his  normal  self.  I  wish 
some  one  would  explain  how  this  brutal  sot- 
tishness  can  co-exist  with  the  most  delicate  in 
tellectual  sensibility,  with  the  poet-soul.  We 
have  had  many  explanations  of  the  puzzle,  and 
they  have  only  one  fault — they  do  not  explain. 


1 42  AN  ATTIC  DREAMER 

Dowson  left  us  little,  not  because  he  drank 
much,  but  because  he  could  rarely  satisfy  his 
own  taste,  which  kept  him  as  unhappy  in  a 
literary  sense  as  his  conscience  did  in  a  religious 
one.  He  wrote  some  fine  sonnets  to  a  young 
woman  whose  mother  kept  a  cheap  eating- 
house: — she  married  the  waiter.  The  genius 
of  Beardsley  could  alone  have  done  justice  to 
this  grotesque  anti-climax. 

Like  Beardsley,  Dowson  died  a  Catholic — 
he  had  barely  passed  thirty — but  unlike 
Beardsley,  he  had  expected  to  do  so  all  his 
life,  for  he  was  born  in  the  faith.  Yet  the 
faith  had  not  saved  him  from  le  mal  du  siecle, 
nor  had  it  kept  him  from  the  foul  pit  of  de 
bauchery.  What  it  did — and  this  was  much — 
was  to  give  him  a  hope  at  the  end.  .  .  . 

Oh,  sad  children  of  the  age,  why  wait  so  long 
before  coming  to  your  Mother,  the  ancient 
Church?  She  alone  can  heal  your  cruel 
wounds,  self-inflicted,  and  bind  up  your  bleed 
ing  hearts.  She  alone  can  succor  you;  she  alone 
can  give  your  troubled  spirit  rest  and  quiet 
those  restless  brains  that  would  be  asking,  ask 
ing  unto  madness.  See ! — she  has  balsam  and 
wine  for  your  wayfaring  in  this  world,  and 


CHILDREN  OF  THE  AGE        143 

something  that  will  fortify  you  for  a  longer 
journey.  Hear  ye  the  bells  calling  the  happy 
faithful  who  have  never  known  the  hell  of 
doubt;  hear  ye  the  organ  pealing  forth  its  jubi 
lation  over  the  Eternal  Sacrifice !  Come  into 
the  great  House  of  God,  founded  in  the  faith, 
strong  with  the  strength,  sanctified  by  the 
prayer,  and  warm  with  the  hope  of  nineteen 
hundred  years.  Come,  make  here  at  the  altar 
a  sacrifice  of  your  poor  human  gifts,  and  ex 
change  them  for  undying  treasures.  Painter, 
for  your  bits  of  canvas,  the  glories  of  heaven; 
poet,  for  your  best  rhyme  the  songs  of  the 
saved.  Come,  though  it  be  not  until  the  last 
hour — yet  come,  come,  even  then!  .  .  . 

Whether  the  old  Church  can  really  give 
what  she  promises,  I  know  not,  but  sure  am  I 
that  men  will  go  on  believing  to  the  end.  For 
faith  is  ever  more  attractive  than  unfaith,  and 
human  nature  craves  a  comfortable  heaven; 
and,  after  all,  it  takes  more  courage  to  die  in 
the  new  scientific  theory  of  things  than  in  the 
simple  belief  of  the  saints.  And  alas !  the  cold 
affirmations  of  science  can  not  cure  nor  genius 
itself  satisfy  the  stricken  children  of  the  age. 


IX 

THE    BLACK    FRIAR 

Beware!  beware!  of  the  Black  Friar 

Who  sitteth  by  Norman  stone, 
For  he  mutters  his  prayer  in  the  midnight  air, 

And  his  mass  of  the  days  that  are  gone. 

*      *      * 

And  whether  for  good  or  whether  for  ill 

It  is  not  mine  to  say, 
But  still  to  the  house  of  Amundeville 

He  abideth  night  and  day. 

— DON  JUAN 

ONE  may  wonder  what  my  Lord  Byron 
in    the    shades    thinks    of    his    noble 
grandson's   performance    in    summon 
ing  the  obscene  Furies  to  a  final  desecration  of 
his  grave.     Surely  the  ghouls  of  scandal  that 
find  their  congenial  food  in  the  shrouds  of  the 
illustrious  dead,  have  never  had  richer  quarry. 
True,  they  have  already  had  their  noses  at  the 
scent  (through  the  sweet  offices  of  an  Ameri 
can  authoress),*  and  have  even  picked  a  little 

*  Harriet  Beecher  Stowe,  whose  book  "Lady  Byron  Vindi 
cated"  made  so  great  a  sensation  nearly  fifty  years  ago,  and 
is  now  all  but  forgotten.     Mrs.  Stowe's  posthumous  hanging 
144 


THE  BLACK  FRIAR  145 

at  the  carrion;  but  the  full  body-of-death  was 
never  before  delivered  to  them. 

This  point  has  been  clouded  over  in  the  pub 
lic  discussion  of  the  infamy.  It  should  be  made 
clear  in  order  that  the  Earl  of  Lovelace  may 
receive  his  due  credit.  Mrs.  Harriet  Beecher 
Stowe's  revelations  were,  of  course,  to  the 
same  purport,  but  they  were  based  on  the  un 
supported  word  of  Lady  Byron  and  some  very 
free  readings  of  certain  passages  in  the  poet's 
works.  Everybody  was  shocked,  nobody  con 
vinced.  Mrs.  Stowe's  book  was  damned  by 
universal  consent  and  withdrawn  from  public 
sale. 

Lord  Lovelace  has  about  the  same  story  to 
tell,  and  his  revival  of  the  horrid  scandal  would 
go  for  naught,  were  it  not  that  he  is  himself  a 
kind  of  witness  against  the  dead.  It  would  be 
foolish  to  deny  that  many  people  will  as  such 
accept  him.  There  is  nobody  now  living  to 
share  or  dispute  his  preeminence  in  shame. 
Lord  Lovelace  should  have  a  portion,  at  least, 
of  the  burden  of  Orestes.  .  .  . 

Yes,  there  are  terrible  things  in  this  darkly 
perplexed  drama  of  the  house  of  Byron,  which 

of  Byron  in  chains  was  strongly  disrelished  by  the  English- 
reading  public.  One  does  not  easily  pick  up  a  copy  of  her 
book. 


i46          AN  ATTIC  DREAMER 

make  it  seem  like  a  modern  version  of  the  old 
Greek  tragedy.  Look  at  the  figures  in  it.  A 
great  poet — among  the  very  greatest  of  his 
race — beautiful  as  a  god,  born  to  the  highest 
place,  the  spoiled  darling  of  nature  and  of  for 
tune,  dazzling  the  world  with  his  gifts,  drunk 
himself  with  excess  of  power,  crowding  such 
emotion  and  enthusiasm,  such  vitality  and  pas 
sion,  such  adventure  and  achievement,  such  a 
fulness  of  productive  power  within  the  short 
span  of  a  life  cut  off  in  its  prime,  as  have 
scarcely  ever  marked  the  career  of  another 
human  being.  Never  have  men's  eyes  wonder- 
ingly  followed  so  splendid  and  lawless  a  comet 
in  the  sky  of  fame.  Never  was  man  loved 
more  passionately,  hated  more  bitterly,  ad 
mired  more  extravagantly,  praised  more 
wildly,  damned  more  deeply.  His  quarrel  di 
vided  the  world  into  armed  camps  which  still 
maintain  their  hostile  lines.  He  was  the  Na 
poleon  *  of  the  intellectual  world  and  bulked  as 
large  as  the  Corsican,  with  whom  indeed  he 
shared  the  admiration  of  Europe.  And  by 

*  Byron  scandalized  the  England  of  his  day  by  his  great 
and    (as   it    was    then    regarded)    disloyal    admiration    for 
Napoleon.     The    text    is    justified   by   his    famous    boast    in 
"Don  Juan".     "Even  I  myself",   he   says— 
Was  reckoned  a  considerable  time 
The  Grand  Napoleon  of  the  realms  of  rhyme. 


THE  BLACK  FRIAR  147 

Europe  he  was  acclaimed  and  almost  deified 
when  England  had  first  exiled  and  later  denied 
him  a  place  in  the  pantheon  of  her  great. 

Never,  too,  were  great  faults  redeemed  by 
grander  virtues,  worthy  of  his  towering  genius 
— virtues  to  which  the  eyes  of  those  who  loved 
him  still  turned  with  shining  hope  after  each 
brief  eclipse  of  his  nobler  self,  as  when  the 
sudden  summer  storm  has  passed  over,  men 
seek  the  sun.  Virtues  which  drew  the  hatred 
of  his  race  and  caste,  and  have  left  his  name 
as  a  sword  and  a  burning  brand  in  the  world. 

Such  is  the  chief  actor  in  this  terrible  and 
sinister  drama  which  has  lately  been  unveiled 
by  the  perfidy  of  the  heir  of  his  blood — the 
son  of  that  "Ada"  whom  his  verse  has  immor 
talized.  The  remaining  characters  are  few, 
which  is  also  fatally  in  accordance  with  the 
rules  of  Greek  tragedy.  For  the  most  tremen 
dous  dramas  of  the  flesh  and  the  spirit  do  not 
ask  a  crowd  of  performers;  two  or  three  per 
sons  will  suffice  and  the  eternal  elements  of 
love  and  hate. 

So  here  we  have,  besides  the  poet,  only  the 
unloved  and  unloving  wife,  who  meekly  dis 
charged  her  bosom  of  its  long-festering  rancor 
ere  she  left  the  world;  the  beloved — perhaps 


148  AN  ATTIC  DREAMER 

too  wildly  beloved — half-sister  of  the  poet, 
whose  memory  (in  spite  of  the  hideous 
calumny  laid  upon  her)  is  like  a  springing  foun 
tain  of  bright  water  in  the  hot  desert  of  his 
life;  *  and,  lastly,  the  evil  grandson  in  whom 
the  ancestral  curses  of  the  house  of  Byron  have 
found  a  terribly  fit  medium  of  execution  and 
vengeance.  It  seems  a  circumstance  of  added 
horror  that  this  parricidal  slanderer  should  be 
a  hoary  old  man,  while  the  world  can  not 
imagine  Byron  save  as  he  died,  in  the  glory 
and  beauty  of  youth. 

What  madness  possessed  the  man?  Was  it 
perhaps  the  hoarded  rage  and  bitterness  of 
many  years,  that  he  should  have  been  com 
pelled  to  live  his  long  life  without  fame  or 
notice,  in  the  shadow  of  a  mighty  name?  A 
wild  enough  theory,  but  such  extraordinary 
madness  as  my  Lord  Lovelace's  will  not  allow 
of  sane  conjecture.  One  does  not  pick  and 
choose  his  hypotheses  in  Bedlam. 

That  my  Lord  Lovelace  is  mad  doth  suf 
ficiently,  indeed  overwhelmingly,  appear  from 

*  In  the  desert  a  fountain  is  springing, 

In  the  wide  waste  there  still  is  a  tree, 
And  a  bird  in  the  solitude  singing 
Which  speaks  to  my  spirit  of  thee. 

[Byron  to  his  sister.] 


THE  BLACK  FRIAR  149 

his  part  in  this  shameful  and  lamentable  busi 
ness;  but,  as  often  happens  in  cases  of  reason 
ing  dementia,  the  truth  comes  out  rather  in 
some  petty  detail  than  in  the  general  conduct, 
Thus,  at  the  outset,  he  orders  his  charges  very 
well  and  maintains  a  semblance  of  dignity  that 
would  befit  a  worthier  matter.  One  is,  pass 
ingly,  almost  tempted  to  believe  that  the  noble 
lord  has  been  moved  to  the  shocking  enter 
prise  by  a  compelling  sense  of  moral  and  even 
filial  obligation.  He  seems  to  speak  more  in 
sorrow  than  in  anger  and  comes  near  to  win 
ning  our  sympathy,  if  not  our  approval.  This 
at  the  threshold  of  his  plea.  But  his  malignity 
soon  reveals  itself,  horrifying  and  disgusting 
us,  and  suddenly  the  detail  crops  up — the  little 
thing  for  which  intelligent  alienists  are  always 
on  the  alert — and  losing  all  control,  he  aban 
dons  himself  to  the  utter  freedom  of  his  hatred 
and  his  madness.  I  refer  now  to  the  atrocious 
passage  in  his  book  in  which  he  exults  over 
the  alleged  fact  revealed  by  the  post-mortem 
examination  of  Byron's  remains — that  the 
poet's  heart  was  found  to  be  partly  petrified  or 
turned  into  stone! 

A  pretty  bauble  this  to  play  with !     There 
are  saner  men  than  my  Lord  Lovelace  trying 


150          AN  ATTIC  DREAMER 

to  seize  the  moon  through  their  grated  win 
dows,  and  coming  very  near  to  doing  it — oh, 
very  near! 

But  I  should  like  to  have  a  look  at  my  Lord 
Lovelace's  heart!  .  .  . 

Lovers  of  Byron's  fame  may  be  glad,  at 
least,  that  the  worst  has  now  been  said  and 
calumny  can  not  touch  the  great  poet  further. 
Ever  since  his  death  nearly  a  hundred  years 
ago,*  the  hyenas  of  scandal  have  wrangled 
over  his  grave,  shocking  the  world  in  their 
hunt  for  uncleanness.  All  the  nameless  things 
that  delight  to  see  greatness  brought  low, 
genius  disgraced,  the  sanctuary  of  honor  defiled 
and  the  virtue  of  humanity  trampled  in  the 
dirt,  were  bidden  to  the  feast.  Those  obscene 
orgies  have  lasted  a  long  time:  they  are  now 
at  an  end.  The  unclean  have  taken  away  the 
uncleanness,  if  such  there  was,  and  are  dis 
persed  with  their  foul  kindred  in  the  wilder 
ness.  The  clean  remains,  and  all  that  was  truly 
vital  and  imperishable  of  Byron — the  legacy  of 
his  genius,  the  inspiration  of  his  example  in 
the  cause  of  liberty,  the  deathless  testimony  of 
his  spirit  for  that  supreme  cause,  and  his  flame- 

*  Byron  died  in  1824. 


THE  BLACK  FRIAR  151 

hearted  protest  against  the  enthroned  Sham, 
Meanness  and  Oppression  which  still  rule  the 
world.  These  precious  bequests  of  Byron  we 
have  immortal  and  secure.  As  for  the  rest — 

Glory  without  end 
Scattered  the  clouds  away,  and  on  that  name 

attend 
The  tears  and  praises  of  all  time! 


LAFCADIO    HEARN 

HAS  the  Silence  fallen  upon  thee,  O 
Lafcadio,  in  that  far  Eastern  land  of 
strange  flowers,  strange  gods  and 
myths,  where  thou,  grown  weary  of  a  world 
whence  the  spirit  of  romance  had  flown,  didst 
fix  thy  later  home  ?  Art  thou  indeed  gone  for 
ever  from  us  who  loved  thee,  being  of  thy 
brave  faith  in  the  divinity  of  the  human  spirit, 
and  art  thou  gathered  to  a  strange  Valhalla 
of  thy  wiser  choice, — naturalized  now,  as  we 
may  of  a  truth  believe,  among  the  elect  and 
heroic  shades  of  old  Japan?  Is  that  voice 
stilled  which  had  not  its  peer  in  these  lament 
able  days,  sounding  the  gamut  of  beauty  and 
joy  that  has  almost  ceased  to  thrill  the  souls 
of  men?  Child  of  Hellas  and  Erin,  are  those 
half-veiled  eyes,  that  yet  saw  so  deeply  into 
the  spiritual  Mystery  that  enfolds  our  sensu 
ous  life,  forever  closed  to  this  earthly  scene? 
Hath  Beauty  lost  her  chief  witness  and  the 
152 


LAFCADIO  HEARN  153 

Lyre  of  Prose  her  anointed  bard  and  sacerdos? 
Shall  we  no  more  hearken  to  the  cadences  of 
that  perfect  speech  which  was  thy  birthright, 
sprung  as  thou  wert  from  the  poesy  of  two 
immemorial  lands,  sacred  to  eloquence  and 
song?  .  .  . 

Ill  shall  we  bear  thy  loss,  O  Lafcadio,  given 
over  as  we  are  to  the  rule  and  worship  of 
leaden  gods.  Thou  wert  for  us  a  witness 
against  the  iron  Law  that  crushed,  and  ever 
crushes,  our  lives;  against  the  man-made  su 
perstition  which  impudently  seeks  to  limit  the 
Ideal.  From  beyond  the  violet  seas,  in  thy 
flower-crowned  retreat,  thou  didst  raise  the 
joyous  paean  of  the  Enfranchised.  Plunged 
deep  into  mystic  lore  hidden  from  us,  explor 
ing  a  whole  realm  of  myths  and  worships  of 
which  our  vain  science  knows  nothing,  thou 
wouldst  smile  with  gentle  scorn  at  the  mon 
strous  treadmill  of  creeds  and  cultures — gods 
and  words — where  we  are  forever  doomed  to 
toil  without  fruit  or  respite. 

We  hearkened  to  thy  wondrous  tales  of  a 
land  whose  babes  have  more  of  the  spirit  of 
Art  than  the  teachers  of  our  own;  where  love 
is  free,  yet  honored  and  decency  does  not  con 
sist  in  doing  that  privately  which  publicly  no 


154          AN  ATTIC  DREAMER 

man  dare  avow;  where  religion,  in  our  sophis 
tical  sense,  does  not  exist,  and  where  crime, 
again  in  our  brutal  sense,  is  all  but  unknown. 
We  heard  thee  tell,  with  ever  more  wonder, 
how  this  people  of  Japan  has  gone  on  for  hun 
dreds,  nay,  thousands  of  years,  producing  the 
humblest  as  well  as  the  highest  virtues  with 
out  the  aid  of  an  officious  religion;  how  these 
Japanese  folk  have  the  wisdom  of  age  and  the 
simplicity  of  childhood,  being  simple  and 
happy,  loving  peace,  contented  with  little,  re 
spectful  toward  the  old,  tender  toward  the 
young,  merciful  toward  women,  submissive 
under  just  authority,  and  loving  their  beautiful 
country  with  a  fervor  of  patriotism  which  we 
may  not  conceive.* 

All  this  and  more  didst  thou  teach  us,  Laf- 
cadio,  in  the  way  of  thy  gracious  art,  with 
many  an  exquisite  fancy  caught  from  the  legen 
dary  lore  of  ancient  Nippon,  and  with  the 
ripe  fulness  of  thy  strangely  blended  genius. 
So  we  listened  as  to  a  far-brought  strain  of 

*This  was  written  shortly  after  the  death  of  Hearn  in 
1905.  Elsewhere  I  have  noted  (vide  "NEW  ADVENTURES") 
that  in  his  later  years  Hearn  experienced  a  certain  dis 
illusionment  in  regard  to  the  Japanese.  It  appears  from  his 
letters  that  as  his  exile  lengthened  he  felt  the  prose  of  the 
East  more  than  the  poetry ;  while  to  the  very  end  he  resented 
the  Occidentalizing  process  at  work  in  Japan. 


LAFCADIO  HEARN  155 

music,  and  were  glad  to  hear,  hailing  thee 
Master — a  title  thou  hadst  proudly  earned. 
Yet  even  as  we  sat  at  thy  feet  drinking  in  the 
tones  of  thy  voice,  there  came  One  who  touched 
thee  quickly  on  the  lips — and  we  knew  the  rest 
was  Silence.  .  .  . 

Peace  to  thee,  Lafcadio,  child  of  Erin  and 
Hellas,  adopted  son  and  poet  of  Nippon.  Thy 
immortality  is  sure  as  the  dayspring;  for  thou 
sleepest  in  the  Land  of  the  Sunrise  .  .  .  and 
Nippon,  who  has  never  learned  to  forget, 
watches  over  thy  fame ! 


II 

LAFCADIO  HEARN  was  a  poet  working 
in  prose,  as  all  true  poets  now  inevitably 
are,  a  literary  artist  of  original  motive  and 
distinction  among  the  rabble  of  contemporary 
scribblers.  For  these  two  things  a  man  is  not 
easily  forgiven  or  forgotten  when  he  has 
passed  the  Styx. 

Half  Irish,  half  Greek,  the  flower  of  this 
man's  genius  took  unwonted  hue  and  fragrance 
from  his  strangely  blended  paternity;  the 
hybrid  acquired  a  beauty  new  and  surprising 
in  a  world  that  looks  only  for  the  stereotype. 


156          AN  ATTIC  DREAMER 

Despairing  of  the  tame  effects  produced  by 
regularity,  Nature  herself  seems  to  have  set  an 
example  of  lawlessness. 

Lafcadio  Hearn  took  care  to  avoid  the  con 
ventional  in  the  ordering  of  his  life  as  sedu 
lously  as  in  the  products  of  his  brain.  For 
this,  the  man  being  now  dead  and  silent,  the 
conventional  takes  a  familiar  revenge  upon  his 
memory. 

The  conventional — lest  we  forget — is  the 
consensus  of  smug  souls,  the  taboo  uttered  by 
mediocrity,  the  Latin  invidia  whereat  Flaccus 
flickered,  with  all  his  assurance.  It  has  much 
the  same  voice  in  every  age. 

Notwithstanding,  one  plain  fact,  avouched 
by  all  human  experience,  may  reassure  the 
wide-scattered  fraternity  of  those  who  prize 
the  work  and  cherish  the  memory  of  Lafcadio 
Hearn.  It  is  this: — No  man  ever  succeeded  in 
writing  himself  down  better  or  worse  than  he 
really  was.  You  may  write,  but  the  condition 
is  that  you  make  a  faithful  likeness  of  yourself 
— nothing  extenuate  nor  set  down  aught  in 
malice. 

The  true  Lafcadio  Hearn,  the  shy,  pitiably 
myopic  genius  nursed  on  tears,  the  dreamer  of 
strange  dreams,  the  prose  poet  of  a  new  dower 


LAFCADIO  HEARN  157 

of  fancy,  the  weaver  of  hitherto  unwrought 
cadences  for  the  inner  ear,  the  latest  brave 
worshipper  of  truth  and  beauty, — where  shall 
we  look  for  him  but  in  his  enduring  work? — 
soul  and  man  to  the  essential  life! 

I  have  been  re-reading  the  work  of  Hearn, 
and  an  old  conviction  of  mine  is  thus  reaf 
firmed, — that  in  him  we  have  to  reckon  with 
one  of  the  few  men  of  the  Nineteenth  century 
who  made  literature  that  promises  to  endure. 

The  "Life  and  Letters"  by  Elizabeth  Bis- 
land  is  a  worthy  piece  of  literary  craftsman 
ship.  The  appreciation  of  Hearn  both  as  man 
and  artist  is  suffused  with  the  warmth  and 
color  of  a  generous  woman's  temperament. 
More  critical  and  tempered  estimates  will  be 
written,  as  time  goes  by  and  he  comes  into  his 
own,  but  none  that  can  ever  supersede  Eliza 
beth  Bisland's  charming  work.  She  has  done 
well  for  her  friend  throughout,  but  her  care 
in  gathering  and  presenting  the  Letters  is 
really  a  priceless  service  to  his  memory  and  an 
addition  to  the  treasures  of  literature. 

Hearn  was  often  doubtful  of  his  blessings, 
and  there  was  one  which  he  perhaps  never 
justly  estimated.  I  mean  his  relation  to  a  small 
but  interested  circle  of  friends  for  whom  he 


i $8  AN  ATTIC  DREAMER 

was  moved  to  pour  himself  out  with  the  frank 
ness  and  force  that  characterize  his  letters. 
Mind,  I  do  not  say  that  Hearn  failed  to  ap 
preciate  his  friends,  but  I  suspect  that  he  did 
not  fully  realize  his  blessedness  in  having  a 
few  friends  whom  he  found  a  real  pleasure  in 
writing  to,  and  who  challenged  him,  as  it  were, 
to  the  fullest  self-revelation. 

Literary  men  nowadays  are  too  self-con 
scious  to  write  good  letters,  or  they  lack  the 
talent  (which  is  perhaps  nearer  the  mark),  or 
they  prefer  to  telegraph,  or  they  wish  to  save 
all  for  the  shop.  But  we  must  not  forget  that 
it  takes  two  to  write  a  real  letter — one  to  sum 
mon  and  one  to  send  it.  In  very  truth,  such 
letters  as  give  the  world  delight  are  a  real 
collaboration,  though  the  work  be  signed  by 
only  one  hand. 

We  should  not  have  Lamb's  Letters  (choic 
est  of  all  the  epistolary  tribe)  but  for  Words 
worth,  Coleridge,  Hazlitt,  Procter,  Manning, 
Gary,  et  al.;  and  we  should  not  have  Hearn's 
but  for  Miss  Bisland  and  Messrs.  McDonald, 
Chamberlain,  Krehbiel,  Hendrick,  and  others. 

Moreover,  if  the  credit  of  authorship  is  but 
for  the  hand  that  held  the  pen,  there  is  honor 
and  remembrance  for  the  silent  collaborators. 


LAFCADIO  HEARN  159 

I  doubt  if  Hearn  ever  thought  of  his  letters 
as  a  literary  asset,  yet  they  are  being  eagerly 
read  by  many  who  are  incapable  of  the  deli 
cate  esoteric  beauty  of  his  Japanese  creations. 
The  reason  is  plain:  Hearn's  letters  tell  the 
most  fascinating  story  in  the  world.  The  story 
of  a  man  of  true  genius  who  fought  a  brave 
fight  through  long  years  against  poverty,  half- 
blindness,  and  all  the  misfortunes  of  an  un 
toward  fate,  until  he  finally  achieved  some 
image  of  the  Ideal  that  haunted  him,  and  set 
his  light  on  a  hill  where  all  the  world  might 
see  it.  The  story,  too,  of  a  man  who  never 
took  himself  as  a  hero,  nor  asked  to  be  taken 
as  such,  but  made  his  hard  course  as  pluckily 
as  if  the  world's  applause  attended  him.  Who 
was  never  at  pains  to  make  himself  out  dif 
ferent  from  what  he  was,  but  gave  a  true  like 
ness  which,  by  the  grace  and  fortune  of  genius, 
turns  out  to  be  an  incomparable  Portrait  of  a 
Man! 

These  letters  of  Hearn  are,  in  truth,  hardly 
inferior  to  any  in  our  literature.  I  am  not  sure 
but  that  they  give  us  the  most  interesting  and 
faithful  picture  of  a  true  literary  man's  life, 
of  his  soul  and  his  environment,  that  literature 
affords.  Like  Lamb's  letters,  they  complement 


160  AN  ATTIC  DREAMER 

his  formal  literary  work,  and  are  even  su 
perior  to  it  on  several  counts,  as  in  their  deep 
human  interest,  their  flashing  fun  and  satire, 
their  touches  of  quaint  wisdom,  their  treasures 
of  patient  observation. 

ill 

r  I^HESE  ten  or  a  dozen  handsome  volumes, 
A  then,  represent  the  literary  bequest  of 
Lafcadio  Hearn:  it  was  to  give  these  that  he 
lived  and  toiled  and  suffered.  "Give"  is  the 
word,  for  little  enough  he  got  from  them  in 
the  way  of  compensation.  No  writer  ever 
more  fully  exemplified  the  truth  that  the  high 
est  service  in  literature  goes  unpaid.  Compen 
sation  of  a  kind  there  was  indeed  for  Lafcadio 
Hearn, — the  compensation  that  arises  from  the 
doing  of  one's  chosen  work,  the  fulfilment  of 
one's  artistic  instinct,  the  gratification  of  that 
craving  need  of  expression  which  is  at  once 
the  joy  and  penalty  of  such  a  nature  as  his. 
But  of  money,  or  success  in  the  common  accep 
tation,  there  was  so  little  for  him  that  he  may 
truly  be  said  to  have  given  all  his  work  for  art's 
sake.  In  1903,  with  less  than  two  years  to  live, 


LAFCADIO  HEARN  161 

we  find  him  writing  to  Mrs.  Wetmore  (Eliza 
beth  Bisland)  : 

"Literary  work  is  over.  When  one  has  to 
meet  the  riddle  of  how  to  live,  there  is  an  end 
of  revery  and  dreaming  and  all  literary  'labor- 
of-love.'  It  pays  not  at  all.  A  book  brings 
me  in  about  ikioo — aftpr  i-wn  *7»ot-o'  „*„:*: — 


chose  as  his  literary  executor,  Paymaster 
Mitchell  McDonald  of  the  United  States 
Navy,  stationed  then  at  Yokohama : 


160          AN  ATTIC  DREAMER 

his  formal  literary  work,  and  are  even  su 
perior  to  it  on  several  counts,  as  in  their  deep 
human  interest,  their  flashing  fun  and  satire, 
their  touches  of  quaint  wisdom,  their  treasures 
of  patient  observation. 


ERRATA 

The  reader's  indulgence  is  asked  for  these 
corrections  : 

Page     159,    line     10 — until    he    had    finally 

achieved. 

20 1,     line       7 — armies    and    sentinels. 
203,    line     1 6 — accusing    text. 
223,    line       2 — party    to    the    cheat. 
329,    last    paragraph — any    of    these, 

who  constantly  solicits  thee. 
333)    ^st    line — Ad    majorem,    etc. 

Paris,  October,  1922 


tation,  there  was  so  little  for  him  that  he  may 
truly  be  said  to  have  given  all  his  work  for  art's 
sake.  In  1903,  with  less  than  two  years  to  live, 


LAFCADIO  HEARN  161 

we  find  him  writing  to  Mrs.  Wetmore  (Eliza 
beth  Bisland)  : 

"Literary  work  is  over.  When  one  has  to 
meet  the  riddle  of  how  to  live,  there  is  an  end 
of  revery  and  dreaming  and  all  literary  'labor- 
of-love.'  It  pays  not  at  all.  A  book  brings 
me  in  about  $300 — after  two  years'  waiting. 
My  last  payment  on  four  books  (for  six 
months)  was  $44.  Also,  in  my  case,  good 
work  is  a  matter  of  nervous  condition.  I  can't 
find  the  conditions  while  having  to  think  about 
home,  which  is  'the  most  soul-satisfying  of 
fears,'  according  to  Rudyard  Kipling." 

But  all  his  life  he  had  been  dedicate  to  the 
stern  muses  of  Poverty  and  Labor.  Utterly 
incapable  of  business  and  bargain-making — 
(uthe  moment  I  think  of  business,"  he  says,  "I 
wish  I  had  never  been  born") — he  could  not 
peddle  his  precious  mental  wares  to  advantage, 
and  so  abandoned  everything  to  the  shrewd 
bargainers  of  the  publishing  trade, — glad  to 
do  it,  too,  if  they  would  only  let  him  correct 
his  proofs !  This  is  the  recurrent  note  in  his 
private,  unreserved  correspondence.  In  1899 
he  writes  to  one  of  his  best  friends,  whom  he 
chose  as  his  literary  executor,  Paymaster 
Mitchell  McDonald  of  the  United  States 
Navy,  stationed  then  at  Yokohama : 


1 62          AN  ATTIC  DREAMER 

"Don't  know  whether  I  shall  appear  in  print 
again  for  several  years.  Anyhow,  I  shall  never 
write  again  except  when  the  spirit  moves  me. 
It  doesn't  pay,  and  what  you  call  'reputation' 
is  a  most  damnable,  infernal,  unmitigated 
misery  and  humbug.  .  .  .  While  every  book  I 
write  costs  me  more  than  I  get  for  it,  it  is  evi 
dent  that  literature  holds  no  possible  rewards 
for  me;  and  like  a  sensible  person,  I'm  going 
to  do  something  really  good  that  won't  sell." 

Let  us  look  a  little  at  the  artist.  I  have  here 
tofore  set  down  my  own  appreciation  of  Laf- 
cadio  Hearn  as  thinker  and  writer:  my  pur 
pose  now  is  merely  to  indicate  by  extracts  from 
his  letters  the  considerations  by  which  his  ar 
tistic  conscience  was  quickened  and  governed. 
Hardly  any  writer  has  expressed  himself  more 
frankly  and  with  less  reserve  on  the  self-im 
posed  canons  of  his  art.  Not  Flaubert  himself 
held  a  more  rigorous  conception  of  the  func 
tion  and  obligation  of  the  writer — the  priest- 
ship  of  art — than  this  man  who  advised  one 
of  his  correspondents,  a  young  man  debating 
the  choice  of  literature  as  a  profession,  to  take 
literature  seriously  or  leave  it  alone! 

How  seriously  he  took  it  himself,  we  have 
already     seen,     and     the     following    extracts 


LAFCADIO  HEARN  163 

gleaned  at  hazard  from  his  letters  help  us  the 
better  to  understand: 

"All  the  best  work  is  done  the  way  ants  do 
things — by  tiny  but  untiring  and  regular  ad 
ditions." 

*  *      * 

"Work  with  me  is  a  pain — no  pleasure  till 
it  is  done.  It  is  not  voluntary;  it  is  not  agree 
able.  It  is  forced  by  necessity.  The  necessity 
is  a  curious  one.  The  mind,  in  my  case,  eats 

itself  when  unemployed." 

*  *      * 

"I  write  page  after  page  of  vagaries,  meta 
physical,  emotional,  romantic, — throw  them 
aside.  Then,  next  day,  I  go  to  work  rewriting 
them.  I  rewrite  and  rewrite  them  till  they  be 
gin  to  define  and  arrange  themselves  into  a 

whole, — and  the  result  is  an  essay." 

*  *     * 

"Of  course,  I  like  a  little  success  and  praise, 
— though  a  big  success  and  big  praise  would 
scare  me;  and  I  find  that  even  the  little  praise 
I  have  been  getting  has  occasionally  unhinged 
my  judgment.  And  I  have  to  be  very  careful." 

And  hearken  to  this,  O  ye  impatient  acolytes 
in  the  Temple  of  Literature,  who  dream  only 
of  golden  rewards,  and  ye  others,  bold  traf 
fickers  in  a  debased  art,  who  measure  achieve 
ment  by  its  money  price  in  the  market. 


1 64  AN  ATTIC  DREAMER 

"Literary  success  of  any  enduring  kind  is 
made  only  by  refusing  to  do  what  publishers 
want,  by  refusing  to  write  what  the  public 
wants,  by  refusing  to  accept  any  popular  stand 
ard,  by  refusing  to  write  anything  to  order." 
*  *  * 

"I  am  going  to  ask  you  simply  not  to  come 
to  see  your  friend,  and  not  to  ask  him  to  see 
you,  for  at  least  three  months  more.  I  know 
this  seems  horrid — but  such  are  the  only  con 
ditions  upon  which  literary  work  is  possible, 
when  combined  with  the  duties  of  a  professor 
of  literature." 

And  this,  than  which  even  the  letters  of 
Lamb  yield  nothing  finer: 

uMy  friends  are  much  more  dangerous  than 
my  enemies.  These  latter — with  infinite  sub 
tlety — spin  webs  to  keep  me  out  of  places 
where  I  hate  to  go, — and  tell  stones  of  me  to 
people  whom  it  would  be  vanity  and  vexation 
to  meet;  and  they  help  me  so  much  by  their 
unconscious  aid  that  I  almost  love  them.  They 
help  me  to  maintain  the  isolation  indispensable 
to  quiet  regularity  of  work.  .  .  .  Blessed  be 
my  enemies,  and  forever  honored  all  those  that 
hate  me ! 

"But  my  friends! — ah,  my  friends!  They 
speak  so  beautifully  of  my  work;  they  believe 
in  it;  they  say  they  want  more  of  it, — and  yet 
they  would  destroy  it!  They  do  not  know 


LAFCADIO  HEARN  165 

what  it  costs, — and  they  would  break  the  wings 
and  scatter  the  feather-dust,  even  as  the  child 
that  only  wanted  to  caress  the  butterfly.  And 
they  speak  of  communion  and  converse  and 
sympathy  and  friendship, — all  of  which  are  in 
deed  precious  things  to  others,  but  mortally 
deadly  to  me,  representing  the  breaking  up  of 
habits  of  industry,  and  the  sin  of  disobedience 
to  the  Holy  Ghost, — against  whom  sin  shall 
not  be  forgiven,  either  in  this  life  or  the  life 

to  come." 

*  *      * 

"The  strong  worker  and  thinker  works  and 
thinks  by  himself.  He  does  not  want  help  or 
sympathy  or  company.  His  pleasure  in  the 

work  is  enough." 

*  *      * 

"One  thing  is  dead  sure:  in  another  genera 
tion  there  can  be  no  living  by  dreaming  and 
scheming  of  art;  only  those  having  wealth  can 
indulge  in  the  luxury  of  writing  books  for 
their  own  pleasure." 

Hearn's  philosophy  of  life,  the  daily  human 
habit  of  the  man,  as  revealed  in  these  letters  to 
a  few  chosen  friends,  is  not  less  racy  and  in 
teresting  than  his  literary  side,  and  it  shows 
him  in  genial,  lovable  aspects  that  will  sur 
prise  many  who  yet  recall  the  old  libels  upon 
his  personal  character.  He  had  strong  native 
wit  (of  which  he  was  too  sparing  in  his  formal 


1 66          AN  ATTIC  DREAMER 

literary  productions),  and,  for  a  dreamer,  as 
tonishing  shrewdness  of  observation.  Of  him 
it  might  be  said  as  of  Renan,  that  he  thought 
like  a  man  and  acted  like  a  child.  Though  ab 
normally  sensitive  and  shy,  disliking  society  in 
the  most  limited  sense,  on  account  of  his  devo 
tion  to  his  work  and  also  because  of  certain 
personal  disadvantages,  his  affections  were 
warm,  sincere  and  constant.  One  cannot  re 
sist  the  belief, — of  which  indeed  there  is  no 
lack  of  testimony, — that  he  was  a  true  friend, 
a  fond  husband  and  father,  and  a  genuine  lover 
of  humanity. 

This  article  is  running  beyond  bounds,  but 
I  venture  to  cite  a  few  more  extracts, — always 
from  his  personal  letters, — that  shed  light  on 
the  man  rather  than  the  writer: 

"We  can  reach  the  highest  life  only  through 
that  self-separation  which  the  experience  of 
illness,  that  is,  the  knowledge  of  physical  weak 
ness,  brings." 

*  *     * 

"How  sweet  the  Japanese  woman  is! — all 
the  possibilities  of  the  race  for  goodness  seem 

to  be  concentrated  in  her." 

*  *     * 

"My  little  wife  said  the  other  morning  that 
there  was  a  mezurashii  kedamono  in  the  next 


LAFCADIO  HEARN  167 

yard.     We  looked  out,  and  the  extraordinary 

animal  was  a  goat!" 

*  *      * 

('You  do  not  laugh  when  you  look  at  moun 
tains,  nor  when  you  look  at  the  sea." 

*  *      * 

uNo  man,  as  a  general  rule,  shows  his  soul 
to  another  man; — he  shows  it  only  to  a  wo 
man.  .  .  .  No  woman  unveils  herself  to  an 
other  woman — only  to  a  man;  and  what  she 

unveils  he  cannot  betray." 

*  *      * 

"It  is  only  in  home-relations  that  people  are 
true  enough  to  each  other, — show  what  human 
nature  is,  the  beauty  of  it,  the  divinity  of  it. 
We  are  otherwise  all  on  our  guard  against 

each  other." 

*  *     * 

"No  man  can  possibly  know  what  life  means, 
what  the  world  means,  what  anything  means, 

until  he  has  a  child  and  loves  it." 

*  *      * 

"Perhaps  if  my  boy  grows  old,  there  will 
some  day  come  back  to  him  memories  of  his 
mother's  dainty  little  world, — the  hibachi, — 
the  tako, — the  garden,  the  lights  of  the  shrine, 
— the  voice  and  hands  that  shaped  his  thought 
and  guided  every  little  tottering  step.  Then 
he  will  feel  very,  very  lonesome, — and  be 
sorry  he  did  not  follow  after  those  who  loved 


i68  AN  ATTIC  DREAMER 

him  into  some  shadowy  resting  place  where  the 

Buddhas  still  smile  under  their  moss!" 

*      *      * 

"I  have  at  home  a  little  world  of  about 
eleven  people  to  whom  I  am  Love  and  Light 
and  Food.  It  is  a  very  gentle  world.  It  is 
only  happy  when  I  am  happy.  If  I  even  look 
tired,  it  is  silent  and  walks  on  tiptoe.  It  is  a 
moral  force.  I  dare  not  fret  about  anything 
when  I  can  help  it,  for  others  would  fret  more. 
So  I  try  to  keep  right." 


IV 

THE  close  of  Lafcadio  Hearn's  life  was 
embittered  by  the  loss  of  his  position  as 
professor  of  English  Literature  at  the  Im 
perial  University  of  Tokyo,  and  no  doubt  his 
days  were  shortened  by  the  terrible  anxieties 
into  which  he  was  thus  thrown.  His  state  was 
never  so  bad  as  it  appeared  to  his  sensitive 
imagination,  to  his  boding  spirit  hopelessly 
clouded  by  the  misfortunes  of  his  youth;  and  a 
remedy  was  found,  alas !  too  late.  His  letters 
about  this  time  are  not  cheerful  reading,  but 
they  are  of  the  most  painful  interest  and  they 
will  ever  call  forth  love  and  pity  for  the 
struggling  and  afflicted  man  of  genius  who  in 


LAFCADIO  HEARN  169 

life  had  known  too  little  of  these  qualities.  I 
quote  from  one  letter  written  in  this  sad  and 
anxious  time  to  Mrs.  Wetmore;  it  is  especially 
poignant,  but  the  burden  is  that  of  others. 

"You  will  be  glad  to  hear  that  I  am  almost 
strong  again,  but  I  fear  that  I  shall  never  be 
strong  enough  to  lecture  before  a  general  pub 
lic.  .  .  .  The  great  and  devouring  anxiety  is 
for  some  regular  employ — something  that  will 
assure  me  the  means  to  live.  ...  I  am  wor 
ried  about  my  boy — how  to  save  him  out  of 
this  strange  world  of  cruelty  and  intrigue. 
And  I  dream  of  old  ugly  things — things  that 
happened  long  ago.  I  am  alone  in  an  Ameri 
can  city,  and  I  have  only  ten  cents  in  my  pocket, 
— and  to  send  off  a  letter  that  I  must  send  will 
take  three  cents.  That  leaves  me  seven  cents 
for  the  day's  food!" 

Lafcadio  Hearn  died  on  September  26th, 
1904,  in  the  fifty-fourth  year  of  his  age.  The 
story  of  his  last  illness  and  death,  as  told  by 
his  faithful  Japanese  wife,  is  most  quaint  and 
pathetic  and  marked  by  little  touches  that  re 
veal  the  spiritual  nobility  of  the  man.  True 
to  his  life-long  revolt  against  the  religion  of 
gloom  and  sorrow,  he  bade  her  not  to  weep  for 
him,  but  to  buy  for  his  coffin  a  little  earthen 
flower  pot,  and  to  bury  him  in  the  yard  of  a 


170          AN  ATTIC  DREAMER 

small  temple  in  some  lonesome  quarter.  (In 
death  as  in  life  the  man  shrank  from  the 
world.)  Then  she  was  to  play  cards  with  their 
children,  and  if  any  people  came  to  ask  for 
him,  she  was  to  say  that  he  had  died  some  time 
before. 

Though  his  physical  breakdown  was  gradual 
and  he  had  noted  in  himself  many  warnings  of 
the  Great  Change  at  hand,  the  end  came  sud 
denly.  On  the  eve  of  his  death  he  dreamed 
that  he  had  gone  on  a  long  and  distant  journey : 
the  fulfilment  came  to  him  with  no  more  pain 
or  struggle  than  ua  little  folding  of  the  hands 
to  sleep"  .  .  . 

Of  him  a  noble  Japanese  has  written: 

"Like  a  lotus  this  man  was  in  his  heart  .  .  . 
a  poet,  a  thinker,  a  loving  husband  and  father, 
and  a  sincere  friend.  Within  him  there  burned 
something  pure  as  the  vestal  fire,  and  in  that 
flame  dwelt  a  mind  that  called  forth  life  and 
poetry  out  of  the  dust,  and  grasped  the  highest 
themes  of  human  thought." 

Lafcadio  Hearn  lies  at  rest  in  the  far 
Eastern  land  of  Japan,  among  the  strange  peo 
ple  whose  life  he  adopted,  who  gave  him  a 
home  and  the  love  of  wife  and  children,  whose 
bravery  and  virtue,  whose  national  spirit, 


LAFCADIO  HEARN  171 

whose  beautiful  legends  and  folklore,  whose 
ancient  and  wondrous  religion,  he  interpreted 
with  perfect  art  and  deep  divining  sympathy, 
for  an  alien  world;  building  thereupon  his  chief 
title  to  remembrance.  Few  writers  of  our  time 
have  achieved  a  more  worthy  or  left  a  more 
lasting  fame. 


XI 

THE    DEFENCE    OF    DAMIEN 

A  PERSON  all  unknown  to  fame,  one 
Rev.  Frederic  Rowland  Marvin, 
makes  a  sinister  bid  for  notice  by  im 
peaching  the  integrity  of  Robert  Louis  Ste 
venson's  motives  in  writing  the  celebrated  Let 
ter  on  Father  Damien. 

Needless  to  recall,  the  Letter  was  addressed 
to  the  Rev.  Dr.  Hyde,  of  Honolulu,  who  had 
cast  some  very  gross  and  unmerited  aspersions 
upon  the  martyr  priest. 

Damien,  as  all  the  world  knows,  was  a  Bel 
gian  missionary  priest  who  had  devoted  him 
self  to  the  service  of  the  lepers  at  Molokai, 
and  who,  contracting  the  disease,  at  the  height 
of  his  vigorous  ministry,  died  among  them. 
The  question  of  his  saintship  cannot  be  taken 
up  by  the  Church  until  a  hundred  years  after 
his  death.  Meantime  many  people  of  different 
religions,  and  some  of  none  at  all,  regard 

Damien  as  the  only  authentic  saint  of  modern 

172 


THE  DEFENCE  OF  DAMIEN    173 

times.      Robert  Louis   Stevenson  was   unques 
tionably  of  this  opinion. 

The  Rev.  Dr.  Hyde,  of  Honolulu,  in  a  letter 
to  a  brother  parson  (the  Rev.  H.  B.  Gage) 
made  the  hideous  charge  that  Damien  had  be 
come  infected  with  leprosy  through  sexual  in 
tercourse  with  the  women  lepers  of  Molokai; 
characterized  him  as  "a  coarse,  dirty  man, 
headstrong  and  bigoted",  and  sneered  at  the 
chorus  of  praise  which  his  heroic  death  had 
evoked.  All  of  which  was  extensively  circu 
lated  by  religious  papers  of  the  Hyde  denomi 
nation. 

This  precious  testimony  came  under  the  eye 
of  Robert  Louis  Stevenson,  who  had  himself 
visited  the  leper  colony  when  Damien  was  "in 
his  resting  grave",  and  had  collected  the  whole 
truth  regarding  him  from  the  witnesses  of  his 
life  and  death.  By  a  useful  coincidence,  the 
author  had  likewise  seen  the  reverend  slan 
derer  Hyde  and  held  converse  with  him  at  his 
"fine  house  in  Beretania  street"  (Honolulu). 

The  posthumous  attack  upon  Damien  by  a 
rival  but  recreant  missioner,  breathing  a  sec 
tarian  malignity  rare  in  our  time,  touched  that 
fiery  intrepid  soul  to  an  utterance  which  ranks 
with  the  highest  proofs  of  his  genius  and  the 


174          AN  ATTIC  DREAMER 

best  fruits  of  the  liberal  spirit.  His  Letter 
on  Father  Damien  is,  in  truth,  the  quintessence 
of  Stevenson,  the  choice  extract  of  his  passion 
and  power,  his  deep-hearted  hatred  of  injus 
tice,  his  princelike  contempt  of  meanness,  his 
loathing  scorn  of  religious  bigotry,  his  tender 
ness,  delicacy,  and  chivalry, — all  conveyed  in 
a  flawless  triumph  of  literary  art.  Not  vainly 
did  he  boast: 

"If  I  have  at  all  learned  the  trade  of  using 
words  to  convey  truth  and  to  arouse  emotion, 
you  have  at  last  furnished  me  with  a  subject." 
And  again:  "I  conceive  you  as  a  man  quite  be 
yond  and  below  the  reticences  of  civility;  with 
what  measure  you  mete,  with  that  it  shall  be 
measured  to  you  again;  with  you,  at  last,  I  re 
joice  to  feel  the  button  off  the  foil  and  to 
plunge  home." 

I  can  never  read  the  Letter  to  Hyde  without 
seeing  a  flame  run  between  the  lines;  I  never 
lay  it  down  that  I  do  not  at  once  bless  and 
damn  the  Rev.  Dr.  Hyde  for  having  provoked 
it:  indeed  there  is  a  sort  of  merit  in  having 
challenged  such  a  flagellation.  But  not  being 
myself  parson-led,  I  wish  the  gentleman  no 
worse  damnation  than  is  assured  to  him  in 
Tusitala's  honest  tribute. 


THE  DEFENCE  OF  DAMIEN    175 

Well,  this  is  the  piece  of  work  which  Dr. 
Marvin — he  is,  it  appears,  a  parson  like  the 
eternally  disgraced  Hyde — seeks  to  disparage 
by  attainting  the  integrity  of  the  knightliest 
figure  of  modern  letters.  Let  us  see  how  this 
bold  parson  achieves  the  asinine  exploit  of 
kicking  the  dead  lion  and  betraying  his  folly  to 
the  world. 

After  stating  the  extraordinary  assumption 
that  Stevenson's  Letter  on  Father  Damien 
"was  never  regarded  as  anything  more  than  a 
striking  exhibition  of  literary  pyrotechny",  Dr. 
Marvin  proceeds  to  judgment  as  follows : 

"Stevenson's  letter  was,  I  am  fully  per 
suaded,  more  the  work  of  the  rhetorician  than 
of  the  man.  He  was  carried  away  by  the  op 
portunity  of  making  a  rhetorical  flourish  and 
impression,  and  so  went  further  than  his  own 
judgment  approved.  Stevenson  was  a  man  of 
many  noble  qualities,  and  conscience  was  not 
wanting  as  an  element  of  power  in  his  life,  but 
his  letter  to  Dr.  Hyde  was  not  honest,  nor  had 
it  for  any  length  of  time  the  approval  of  his 
own  inner  sense  of  right  and  justice.  He  did 
not  really  believe  what  he  wrote,  neither  did 
he  intend  to  write  what  he  did.  The  tempta 
tion  from  a  literary  point  of  view  was  great, 
and  the  writer  got  the  better  of  the  man." 


176  AN  ATTIC  DREAMER 

Here  the  parson  speaks  in  no  uncertain 
tone — a  mere  literary  man  would  not  so  frame 
his  indictment.  But  what  a  gorgeous  piece  of 
impudence ! 

I  would  not  take  the  Rev.  Dr.  Marvin  too 
seriously,  but  lest  any  person  with  the  wit  of 
three  asses  should  be  deceived  by  his  shallow 
effrontery,  one  feels  bound  to  notice  it.  And 
since  the  Rev.  Doctor  has  of  his  own  free  will 
made  himself  yoke-fellow  with  the  defamatory 
Hyde,  it  is  but  just  that  he  be  clothed  with  the 
full  dignity  of  his  election. 

To  discuss  the  foolish,  nay  vicious  question 
which  he  has  raised  concerning  Stevenson's 
honesty  of  motive  in  writing  the  Letter  to  Dr. 
Hyde,  would  shame  any  man — not  a  parson — 
of  common  sense.  Nor  is  it  needful  in  any 
case,  Dr.  Marvin  sufficiently  putting  himself 
out  of  terms  in  these  words:  "The  temptation 
from  a  literary  point  of  view  was  great,  and 
the  writer  got  the  better  of  the  man" 

Now,  lovers  of  Stevenson  have  no  need  to 
be  reminded  that  such  was  his  passionate  care 
to  avoid  the  slightest  doubt  of  his  sincerity  in 
writing  as  he  did  upon  Damien  and  to  repel 
the  stock  literary  imputation  here  uttered  by 


THE  DEFENCE  OF  DAMIEN    177 

a  worthy  champion  of  Hyde,  that  the  Jitter 
was  printed  originally  for  private  distribution 
only.  Although  the  public  demand  for  it  soon 
became  irresistible,  Stevenson  consistently  re 
fused  to  touch  a  penny  from  the  publication. 
In  1890  he  put  this  bluntly  to  a  London  pub 
lisher  who  wished  to  bring  out  an  edition: — 
"The  Letter  to  Dr.  Hyde  is  yours  or  any 
man's.  I  will  never  touch  a  penny  of  remunera 
tion.  I  do  not  stick  at  murder:  I  draw  the 
line  at  cannibalism.  I  could  not  eat  a  penny 
roll  that  piece  of  bludgeoning  had  gained  for 


me." 


"If  the  world  at  all  remember  you"  (said 
the  Letter  to  Hyde)  "on  the  day  when  Damien 
of  Molokai  shall  be  named  Saint,  it  will  be  in 
virtue  of  one  work :  your  letter  to  the  Rev. 
H.  B.  Gage." 

Was  ever  such  a  sight  vouchsafed  to  gods 
or  men  as  this  of  the  Rev.  Dr.  Marvin 
struggling  belatedly  to  win  for  himself  a  small 
title  in  that  infamous  remembrance — to  snatch 
a  rag  from  the  garment  of  shame  which  the 
great  artist  fitted  upon  Dr.  Hyde  in 
his  character  of  Devil's  Advocate  against 
Damien?  .  .  . 

The  defence  of  Damien  remains  one  of  the 
cherished  documents  of  the  free  spirit.  I  thank 


178  AN  ATTIC  DREAMER 

Dr.  Marvin  for  having  given  me  an  occasion 
of  re-reading  it,  and  I  cheerfully  accord  him 
the  grace  of  having  moved  me  to  perform  this 
religious  duty  twice,  instead  of  (my  usual 
practice)  once,  in  the  year.  I  can  but  wonder 
what  manner  of  man  is  he  that  it  should  have 
done  him  so  little  good;  yet  I  know  I  shall  love 
it  the  more  that  its  truth  is  thus  again  proven 
by  the  futile  attacks  of  a  spiritual  fellow  to 
Hyde. 

Yes,  I  re-read — as,  please  God,  often  I  shall 
re-read — that  true  story  of  Damien's  martyr 
dom,  bare  and  tragic  as  Molokai  itself,  traced 
by  the  hand  of  one  who  had  no  sympathy  of 
religious  faith  with  him  but  only  the  common 
kinship  of  humanity — "that  noble  brother  of 
mine  and  of  all  frail  clay".  I  read  again,  with 
quickened  pulse,  of  the  lowly  peasant  priest, 
who,  in  obedience  to  the  Master's  call,  "shut 
to  with  his  own  hand  the  doors  of  his 
sepulchre!"  I  saw  once  more  that  woeful  pic 
ture  of  the  lepers'  island,  surrounded  by  a  great 
waste  of  sea,  which  to  those  condemned 
wretches  spells  the  black  despair  of  infinity: 
— in  its  midst  the  hill  with  the  dead  crater,  the 
hopeless  front  of  precipice,  the  desolation  there 


THE  DEFENCE  OF  DAMIEN    179 

prepared  by  nature  for  death  too  hideous  for 
men  to  look  upon.  Again  I  made  that  melan 
choly  voyage  to  Molokai  and  wept  with  Tusi- 
tala  as  he  sat  in  the  boat  with  the  two  sisters, 
"bidding  farewell,  in  humble  imitation  of 
Damien,  to  the  lights  and  joys  of  human  life". 
I  shuddered  to  mark  the  fearful  deformations 
of  humanity  that  awaited  us  on  the  shore — the 
population  of  a  nightmare — every  other  face 
a  blot  on  the  landscape.  I  saw  the  place  was 
an  unspeakable  hell  even  with  the  hospital  and 
other  improvements,  lacking  when  Damien 
came  there  and  "slept  that  first  night  under  a 
tree  amidst  his  rotting  brethren".  I  visited 
the  Bishop-Home,  whose  every  cup  and  towel 
had  been  washed  by  the  hand  of  "Dirty 
Damien".  I  saw  everywhere  the  tokens  of  his 
passage,  who  "by  one  striking  act  of  martyr 
dom  had  directed  all  men's  eyes  on  that  dis 
tressful  country — who  at  a  blow  and  the  price 
of  his  life  had  made  the  place  illustrious  and 
public".  I  thought  upon  that  great  and  simple 
renunciation,  daunting  the  mind  with  its  sheer 
sacrifice  which,  better  far  than  all  the  loud- 
.-ongued  creeds,  brought  the  living  Christ 
within  sight  and  touch  and  understanding. 
And  these  wonderful  lines  of  Browning  came 


i8o          AN  ATTIC  DREAMER 

into  my  mind  with  a  sudden  vividly  realized 
meaning  and  pathos : 

Remember  what  a  martyr  said 

On  the  rude  tablet  overhead : 

"I  was  born  sickly,  poor  and  mean, 

A  slave — no  misery  could  screen 

The  holders  of  the  pearl  of  price 

From  Caesar's  envy;  therefore  twice 

I  fought  with  beasts,  three  times  I  saw 

My  children  suffer  by  his  law; 

At  last  my  own  release  was  earned; 

I  was  soYne  time  in  being  burned, 

But  at  the  close  a  Hand  came  through 

The  fire  above  my  head,  and  drew 

My  soul  to  Christ  whom  now  I  see. 

Sergius,  a  brother,  writes  for  me 

This  testimony  on  the  wall — 

For  me,  I  have  forgot  it  all." 

(Since  this  essay  was  written,  I  have  met 
with  other  writings  of  Dr.  Marvin's  which 
justify  a  more  favorable  estimate  of  his  mind 
and  motives  than  is  herein  expressed.  No 
doubt  he  erred  chiefly  through  excess  of  loyalty 
to  his  cloth — but  his  error  remains,  uncon- 
fessed  and  unexpiated,  in  a  printed  book.  Even 
so,  a  humble  servant  of  Literature  may  be  al 
lowed  to  owe  a  duty  to  his  order,  which  in 
this  instance,  he  conceives,  is  also  a  duty  to  the 
higher  cause  of  Truth.  MM.) 


XII 

A   PORT  OF  AGE 

READER,  when  for  you  as  for  me  the 
wild  heyday  of  youth  is  past,  and  the 
heart  of  adventure  all  but  pulseless, 
there  is  yet  remaining  to  us  a  wonderful  and 
untried  realm  of  romance.  When  churlish 
Time  shall  think  to  retire  us  from  the  heat  and 
zest  of  life,  classing  us,  too  prematurely,  as 
"old  boys,"  there  is  still  a  trick  we  may  turn  to 
his  discomfiture.  When  the  younkers  club  their 
foolish  wits  for  a  poor  joke  at  our  expense — 
what  is  so  utterly  inane  to  maturity  as  juvenile 
humor,  green-cheese  pleasantry,  pithless, 
fledgeling  conceits? — we  who  are  wise  know 
that  the  best  of  the  game  is  still  for  us;  nor 
would  we  change  with  the  reckless  spendthrifts 
who  mock  us  from  the  vanity  of  twenty  year. 

It's  ho  for  candles,  a  book  and  bed! 

For  candles,  the  modern  equivalent,  of 
course.  I  prefer  a  strong,  well-shaded  lamp 

to  electric  light  or  gas;  the  rockefeller  burns 
181 


182          AN  ATTIC  DREAMER 

with  a  steady  flame,  does  not  sputter,  or 
dwindle,  or  go  out  entirely,  leaving  you  in  a 
sulphuric  darkness.  But  the  wick  should  be 
trimmed  by  the  hand  of  her  who  loves  you  best 
in  the  world;  by  her,  too,  must  the  reading 
table  be  adjusted  cosily  at  the  head  of  the  bed, 
so  that  the  incidence  of  the  gently  burning 
flame  may  be  just  right — the  more  or  less  in 
these  matters  is  of  infinite  significance;  by  her 
must  the  books  and,  above  all,  The  Book,  be 
disposed  ready  to  the  discriminating  hand  of 
the  Sovereign  Lector. 

Oh! — and,  of  course,  the  pipes  or  cigars. 
No  smokeless  person  hath  any  rights  in  this 
kingdom;  he  cometh  falsely  by  his  investiture; 
he  is  a  Bezonian  without  choice;  a  marplot  and 
spy — out  with  him !  .  .  . 

As  to  the  time  of  going  to  bed,  I  would  say 
eight  o'clock,  or  half  after  eight;  not  earlier 
nor  later,  though  the  point  need  not  be  strained 
to  a  finical  nicety.  But  one  can  not  conven 
iently  go  to  bed  amid  the  daylight  business  of 
the  house,  nor  before  supper,  nor  too  soon 
after  it.  I  knew  a  man  who  perversely  in 
sisted  upon  going  to  bed  at  five  o'clock;  he 
never  rose  to  the  dignity  of  a  true  bed-reader, 
and  that  which  is,  properly  used,  the  most  de- 


A  PORT  OF  AGE  183 

lightful  of  indulgences,  became  in  the  end,  to 
this  person,  a  formidable  dissipation.  Like  a 
bad  mariner,  he  was  constantly  out  of  his  reck 
oning  and  at  last  came  to  grief :  the  fact  that 
he  was  a  hater  of  the  emollient  weed  no  doubt 
aided  the  catastrophe. 

But  assuming  that  all  the  unities  have  been 
fulfilled,  that  the  Book,  the  Reader  and  the 
Bed  are  in  the  most  fortuitously  fortunate  con 
junction,  will  you  tell  me  that  the  world  has 
a  sweeter  pleasure  to  bestow,  a  more  pro 
foundly  satisfying,  yet  not  enervating,  luxury 
of  indulgence? 

Recall  an  instant  that  first  delicious  thrill  of 
relaxed  ease,  of  blissful  security,  of  complete 
physical  well-being — every  nerve  telegraphing 
its  congratulations  and  your  spinal  column  in 
toning  a  grand  sweet  song  of  peace!  You  are 
now  between  the  snowy  sheets,  and  the  Elect 
Lady  is  looking  tenderly  to  the  pillows,  etc., 
while  you  are  tasting  the  most  exquisite  of 
sensations  in  the  back  of  your  calves.  This  is 
the  veritable  mine  dimittis  moment  of  the  ex 
perience;  you  are  prepared,  soothed  and  dulci 
fied  for  what  the  Greeks  called  euthanasy; 
could  that  old  classic  idea  of  dissolution  afford 
you  a  sweeter  pang? 


1 84  AN  ATTIC  DREAMER 

But,  man,  you're  not  dying  like  a  rose  in 
aromatic  pain — you're  simply  going  to  bed  to 
read.  And  here  the  Elect  Lady,  giving  a  final 
pat  to  the  pillows,  leans  over,  kisses  you  fondly 
and  says,  "All  right  now,  dear?" 

To  which  you  reply  (dissembling  an  internal 
satisfaction  violent  enough  to  alarm  the  po 
lice) — "All  right  now,  darling,  thank  you — 
but  just  push  the  cigars  a  bit  nearer — there. 
And  be  sure  you  tell  Mary  to  keep  the  children 
quiet.  And,  of  course,  you  won't  forget  to 
bring  it  up  later — with  a  good  bit  of  ice;  so 
soothing  after  the  mental  excitement  of  a 
strong  author.  Thank  you,  dear." 

These  details  will  often  be  varied — the  un- 
wedded  reader  is  not,  I  think,  steeped  in  such 
felicity,  and  of  course  there  be  instances  where 
the  married  lector  does  not  come  at  his  desire 
so  featly — but  the  outline  remains  the  same. 
And  the  result  arrives,  as  the  French  say:  that 
is,  my  gentleman  comes  to  book  and  bed. 

Then  truly  is  he  in  that  happy  state  de 
scribed  by  the  poet, — 

"The  world  forgetting,  by  the  world  forgot" ; 

raised    to    the    Nirvana    of   the    mind;    close- 
wrapped  in  the  eider-down  security  of  his  little 


A  PORT  OF  AGE  185 

kingdom  that  knoweth  no  treasons,  stratagems 
or  insurrections;  in  the  world  and  yet  not  of 
it,  like  unto,  though  in  a  different  sense  from, 
the  Apostolic  figure;  tasting  the  pure  pleasures 
of  the  intellect  with  a  delicious  feeling  of  men 
tal  detachment  and  at  the  same  time  a  caress 
ing  consciousness  of  bodily  ease;  no  other 
troubling  imperium  in  his  imperio — no  thief 
in  his  candle — no  fly  in  his  ointment — nothing 
but  the  Book  and  his  Absoluteship ! 

It  is,  Socratically  considered,  the  only  ra 
tional  method  of  reading — the  most  univer 
sally  abused  of  all  the  liberal  arts.  Are  there 
not  persons  who  make  a  foolish  pretence  of 
reading  on  railways  trains,  or  in  public  res 
taurants,  or  in  hotel  lobbies,  or  even  in  theatres 
between  the  acts; — nay,  sometimes,  by  a  piece 
of  intolerable  coxcombry,  during  the  play  it 
self?  Whip  me  such  barren  pretenders! — 
there  is  not  a  reader  among  them  all. 

I  am  not  sure  that  there  is  higher  praise 
(for  the  intellectuals)  than  to  be  called  a  good 
reader,  which  is  to  say,  a  bed-reader.  For  the 
true  reader  (lector  in  sponda)  is  only  less  rare 
than  the  genuine  writer;  his  genius  no  less  a 
native  and  unacquired  attribute;  his  setting 
apart  from  the  common  herd  as  clearly  defined 


1 86          AN  ATTIC  DREAMER 

and  delimited.  To  be  a  reader  in  this,  the 
only  true  sense,  is  to  belong  to  the  Aristocracy 
of  Intellect,  and  to  be  assured  of  a  philosophy 
which  brings  to  age  a  crown  of  delight. 

No  man  should  take  up  the  noble  habit  of 
reading  abed  before  the  age  of  discretion,  that 
is  to  say,  the  fortieth  year — for  at  the  eighth 
lustrum  comes  the  dry  light  of  reason,  which  is 
the  true  essential  flame  of  the  bed-reader,  and, 
lacking  which,  he  hath  as  little  profit  of  his 
vocation  as  the  owl  at  noonday. 

II 

I  HAVE  for  some  years  made  a  practice  of 
shrewdly  canvassing  my  friends  and  corre 
spondents  (more  or  less  bookish)  on  this  deli 
cate  subject.  I  say  delicate  because,  owing  to 
a  sort  of  housewifely  intolerance  much  to  be 
deplored,  the  pleasure  of  reading  abed  is  here 
and  there  regarded  as  an  illicit  and  reprehen 
sible  one — I  have  even  heard  of  one  or  two 
strong-minded  ladies  who  condemned  it  as 
"positively  immoral".  However,  as  a  result  of 
my  inquiries,  I  am  enabled  to  pronounce  that 
the  most  delightful  of  intellectual  pastimes  is 
in  no  likelihood  of  falling  into  neglect.  This, 
too,  in  spite  of  the  fact  that  the  habit  of  smok- 


A  PORT  OF  AGE  187 

ing  at  the  same  time — a  necessary  concomitant, 
as  I  have  shown — makes  of  the  indulgence  a 
"fearful  joy",  and  occasionally  creates  a  little 
business  for  the  insurance  companies. 

But  there  is  scarcely  an  act  of  our  daily  life 
that  does  not  involve  some  risk  or  peril,  and 
the  stout  bed-reader  (and  smoker)  will  not  suf 
fer  himself  to  be  daunted  by  a  slight  accident 
or  so,  or  even  a  hurry  call  from  the  fire  de 
partment.  Besides,  there  are  some  obvious 
precautionary  measures  which  elderly  gentle 
men  (in  particular)  might  take  in  order  to 
combine  the  two  delicious  habits  of  reading 
and  smoking  abed  with  reasonable  safety:  e.g., 
neat,  removable  book-covers  of  asbestos  might 
be  provided,  with  gloves  of  vulcanized  rubber 
or  some  similar  non-inflammable  material;  and 
if  one  have  the  unlucky  habit  of  nodding  into 
the  lamp,  the  bonnet  de  null  might  also  be  of 
rubber  or  asbestos.  Such  an  apparatus  should 
render  the  careless  bed-reader  immune  against 
any  but  the  most  extraordinary  accidents.  I 
would  not  have  him  feel  too  safe,  however,  for 
as  stolen  pleasures  are  known  to  be  sweetest, 
so  in  this  matter  the  bed-reader's  gratification 
is  heightened  and  dulcified  by  a  titillant  sense 
of  lurking  danger.  Indeed,  I  make  no  doubt 


1 88  AN  ATTIC  DREAMER 

that  a  spark  now  and  then  dropping  in  the  bed 
clothes,  or  in  the  folds  of  the  reader's  nighty, 
or  in  his  whiskers  (should  he  haply  be  val- 
anced)  and  discovered  before  any  great  dam 
age  is  done  or  profanity  released,  adds  appre 
ciably  to  the  pleasure  of  the  indulgence,  and 
is  not  a  thing  to  be  sedulously  guarded  against. 
However,  this  is  all  a  matter  of  taste,  for  we 
know,  without  reference  to  theology,  that  some 
persons  can  stand  more  fire  than  others. 

This  point  being  settled,  I  am  asked  to  give 
a  list  of  books  or  authors  suitable  to  the  re 
quirements  of  the  mature  bed-reader  (there 
are  no  others).  I  do  not  much  relish  the  task, 
as  I  can  not  bear  to  have  my  own  reading  se 
lected  for  me,  and  the  priggish  effrontery  of 
those  lettered  persons  who  are  constantly  pro 
posing  lists  of  ubest  books"  (in  their  estima 
tion,  forsooth!)  moves  my  spleen  not  less  than 
the  purgatorial  industry  of  the  Holy  Office. 
But  perhaps  I  may  indirectly  oblige  my  friends 
by  glancing  slightly  at  the  preferences — or 
mere  crotchets,  if  you  will — of  an  irreclaimable 
bed-reader,  who,  being  entirely  quit  of  the 
vanities  of  careless  youth,  has  now  reached 
that  mellowed  philosophic  age  when  he  would 
rather  lie  snugly  abed  with  a  bright  lamp  at 


A  PORT  OF  AGE  189 

his  pillow  and  a  genial  author  to  talk  to  him 
than  do  anything  else  in  the  world.  Oh,  by 
my  faith! 

In  the  first  place,  then,  I  would  put  books 
of  a  meditative  personal  cast,  such  as  have  the 
privilege  of  addressing  themselves  to  the 
reader's  intimate  consciousness  and  of  beguil 
ing  him  into  the  illusion  that  their  written 
thoughts  and  confessions  are  his  very  own.  Of 
such  favored  books,  beloved  and  cherished  of 
the  true  bed-reader,  are  the  great  essayists  or 
lay  preachers,  Montaigne,  Bacon,  Swift,  Addi- 
son,  Voltaire,  Rousseau,  Rochefoucauld,  Ma- 
caulay,  Lamb,  Emerson,  Carlyle,  Thackeray 
(in  his  Lectures  and  Roundabouts),  Renan, 
Amiel — but  I  am  resolved  not  to  catalogue. 
These  and  such  as  these  are  emphatically 
thinking  books,  fit  for  the  quiet  commerce  of 
the  midnight  pillow;  trusted  confessors  of  the 
soul,  through  whom  it  arrives  the  more  per 
fectly  to  know  itself;  faithful  pilots  in  the  per 
plexed  voyage  of  life;  wise  and  loving  friends 
whose  fidelity  is  never  suspect  or  shaken; 
solemn  and  tender  counsellors  who  give  us  their 
mighty  hearts  to  read;  august  nuncios  that  de 
liver  the  messages  of  the  high  gods. 

I  would  bar  all  modern  fiction,  books  of  the 


1 90  AN  ATTIC  DREAMER 

hour — that  swarm  of  summer  flies — all  trum 
pery  love  stories  founded  on  the  longings  of 
puberty  and  green-sickness,  all  works  on 
theology  and  hagiography  (except  St.  Augus 
tine's  Confessions),  political  histories,  cyclo 
pedias,  scientific  treatises,  the  whole  accursed 
tribe  of  world's  condensed  or  canned  literatures 
and  such  like  compilations,  the  books  of  Hall 
Caine,  Marie  Corelli  and  G.  Bernard  Shaw,* 
newspapers — that  fell  brood  of  time-devourers 
— and  magazines — those  pictured  inanities. 

After  this  summary  clearing  of  the  field,  the 
task  of  selection  should  not  be  difficult;  but 
even  at  this  stage  the  prudent  bed-reader  can 
not  afford  to  go  it  blind. 

I  would  not  advise  books  of  a  violently  hu 
morous  character  more  recent  than  Rabelais, 
Don  Quixote  or  Gil  Bias,  even  though  I  may 
here  seem  to  utter  treason  against  my  beloved 
Mark  Twain.  But  I  must  be  honest  with  my 
readers — bed-readers,  of  course — and  truth 
compels  me  to  say  that  a  recumbent  position 
is  not  favorable  to  much  exercise  of  the  dia 
phragm,  which  such  reading  calls  for.  I  took 
Huck  Finn  to  bed  with  me  once  when  I  lay 

*This  without  prejudice — I  am  merely  indicating  a  pref 
erence  of  the  "desipere  in  loco"  order. 


A  PORT  OF  AGE  191 

down  for  a  long  illness,  and  hung  to  him  in 
spite  of  the  doctor  and  the  nurse,  until  the 
happy  meeting  with  Tom  Sawyer,  when  I  wan 
dered  off  into  a  fantastic  world  where  fictions 
and  realities  were  one.  The  doctor  afterward 
said  I  might  have  died  laughing  at  any  time, 
and  now  I  sometimes  think  that  it  wouldn't 
have  been  such  a  bad  thing — nay,  I  even  be 
lieve  that  one  couldn't  chance  upon  a  happier 
kind  of  death.  .  .  . 

However,  I  must  insist  that  my  friends  shall 
sit  up  to  Huck  Finn,  the  Innocents  and  all  that 
glorious  family  connection,  as  also  to  their  co- 
sharers  in  a  smiling  immortality,  Mr.  Pickwick 
and  Sam  Weller.  Nor  let  me  forget  another 
genial  figure  who  has  taken  a  tribute  of  harm 
less  mirth,  scarcely  inferior  to  theirs,  from 
thousands  of  hearts  and  whom  they  would  wel 
come  to  their  benign  fellowship — I  strongly 
urge  the  reader  who  would  have  a  care  of  his 
health,  not  to  go  to  bed  with  Mr.  Dooley. 

Ill 

NEXT   to    the    great   essayists   mentioned 
above,  the  poets  offer  the  best  reading 
for  night  and  the  bed — indeed  I  am  not  sure 


192  AN  ATTIC  DREAMER 

but  that  it  is  the  only  way  to  read  certain 
poets. 

I  am  equally  fond  of  the  prose  and  the 
poetry  of  Heine,  and  think  he  furnishes  a 
variety  of  entertainment  which,  on  several 
counts,  is  unmatched  by  any  writer.  But  Heine 
gives  no  rest,  and  one  is  soon  overborne  by  the 
charges  of  his  wit  and  the  unceasing  attacks  of 
his  terrible  raillery. 

In  the  most  intimate  sense  Horace  is  (of 
course)  without  a  rival  as  a  companion  and 
comforter  of  the  nightly  pillow.  This  charm 
ing  Pagan  has  confessed  and  will  always  con 
fess  the  best  minds  of  the  literate  Christian 
world.  I  know  one  person  who  owes  his  dear 
est  mental  joys,  his  best  nocturnal  consolations, 
and  the  very  spring  of  hope  itself  to  the  little 
great  man  of  Rome.  But  he  must  be  read  in 
the  original — a  condition  which  unfortunately 
disqualifies  too  many  readers.  The  songs  of 
Horace,  written  in  the  immortal  tongue  of 
Rome,  can  never  become  antiquated.  Though 
the  Pontifex  and  the  Virgin  ceased  hundreds 
of  years  ago  to  climb  the  Capitolian  hill, 
though  the  name  of  Aufidus  is  lost  where  its 
brawling  current  hurries  down,  still  that  treas 
ure  of  genius  endures,  more  lasting  than  brazen 


A  PORT  OF  AGE  193 

column,  a  joy  and  a  refreshment  ever  to  the 
jaded  souls  of  men. 

Horace  has  the  supreme  and  almost  unique 
fortune  to  appear  always  modern,  his  genius 
being  of  the  finest  quality  ever  known  and  hap 
pily  preserved  in  an  unchanging  tongue.  He 
is,  for  instance,  far  more  modern  than  Dante 
and  distinctly  nearer  to  us  than  the  Eliza 
bethans.  Alone,  he  constitutes  a  sufficient 
reason  for  the  admirable,  though  sometimes 
foolishly  censured,  practice  of  reading  abed. 

I  do  not  care  to  read  the  plays  of  Shake 
speare  betwixt  the  sheets — it  seems  a  piece  of 
coxcombry  to  coolly  degust  the  accumulated 
horrors  of  Macbeth  and  Lear  while  lolling  on 
your  back  and  sybaritically  exploring  the  soft 
est  places  in  your  downy  kingdom — truly  a 
case  of  what's  Hecuba  to  him  or  he  to  Hecuba  1 
But  I  find  it  quite  different  with  the  Poems, 
which  (I  may  remark)  are  too  frequently 
overlooked  even  by  those  who  pride  themselves 
on  knowing  their  Shakespeare.  Lately,  in  Dr. 
Rolfe's  admirable  edition,  I  so  re-read  the  Son 
nets,  and  for  the  first  time  arrived  at  some 
thing  like  a  true  sense  and  appreciation  of 
their  deep  organ  melodies,  and  at  least  a  par 
tial  understanding  of  the  strange  lawless  pas- 


i94  AN  ATTIC  DREAMER 

sion  which  inspired  those  wonderful  poems  that 
witness  forever  the  glory  and  mayhap  the 
shame  of  Shakespeare.* 

No  doubt,  the  learned  Dr.  Rolfe  had  to  sit 
up  to  write  his  invaluable  commentary,  with  a 
thorny  desk  at  his  breast;  how  much  more  for 
tunate  I  to  digest  it  with  unlabored  impar 
tiality,  now  and  then  calmly  approving  or,  it 
may  be,  controverting  the  Doctor,  but  without 
heat;  reclining  at  my  ease,  in  a  silence  and  ab 
straction  so  perfect  that  fancy  could  almost 
hear  the  living  voices  of  the  actors  in  this 
strange,  repellent  drama  of  the  greatest  of 
poets — stranger  and  more  darkly  perplexed 
than  any  which  his  genius  gave  to  the  stage — 
and  the  mind  overleaped  three  full  centuries  to 
that  memorable  English  Spring — 

"When  proud-pied  April  dress'd  in  all  his  trim 
Did  put  a  spirit  of  youth  in  everything, 
That  heavy   Saturn   laugh'd   and   leap'd  with 
him!" 

Letters  of  memorable  men  and  women  are 
among  the  pleasantest  and  most  profitable 
reading  for  the  bed.  There  is  so  great  a  plenty 

*The  question  will,  however,  always  remain  a  debatable 
one,  while  Time  and  the  enduring  greatness  of  Shakespeare 
evermore  tend  to  silence  it. 


A  PORT  OF  AGE  195 

of  such  books  that  I  need  not  be  at  pains  to 
specify — and  as  said  before,  I  refuse  to 
catalogue. 

In  this  domain  Voltaire  is  facile  princeps: 
his  wise,  witty,  enchanting  letters  (which  have 
survived  in  point  of  living  interest  the  bulk  of 
his  hundred  volumes)  give  you  the  very  heart 
of  that  wonderful  Eighteenth  century — that 
Sphinx  rather,  some  of  whose  propounded 
riddles  the  world  is  even  now  striving  to  an 
swer  with  enormous  travail  of  blood  and  tears. 

I  may  confess  that,  to  my  humor,  Lamb's 
letters  are  among  the  rarest  deliti<z  deliciarum, 
the  most  enjoyable  reading,  of  this  rather  fas 
tidious  description. 

Dickens's  letters  are  valuable  beyond  those 
of  most  later  English  moderns,  for  their  brave 
and  hopeful  spirit.  And  to  take  a  more  recent 
instance,  Lafcadio  Hearn's  letters  from  Japan 
are  worthy  to  be  included  in  our  select  bed- 
reader's  library;  indeed  there  are  some  not  un- 
sapient  critics  who  prefer  them  to  his  more 
formal  writings. 

Books  of  autobiography  are  good,  so  that 
they  be  not  too  veracious,  like  Franklin's; — a 
defect  which  pertaineth  not  to  the  far  prefer 
able  Messer  Cellini.  Memoirs  and  personal 


196  AN  ATTIC  DREAMER 

chronicles  I  would  not  forbid,  though  the  Pepy- 
sian  hunt  has  been  run  to  death,  out  of  com 
pliment  to  the  modern  fashion  of  glorifying  the 
indecent  Past,  and  is  too  often  the  mark  of 
snobbery  and  a  vulgar  soul.  A  man  shall  not 
leave  the  empyrean  of  the  poets  to  put  his  eye 
to  chamber  keyholes  and  his  nose  to  chamber 
utensils  with  Samuel  Pepys.  .  .  . 

Still,  I  would  not  deny  that  there  be  some 
engaging  scoundrels,  like  Cagliostro  and  the 
before  mentioned  Cellini,  with  whom  one  may 
have  profitable  commerce  in  bed : — a  thing  that 
during  the  lives  of  these  worthies  rarely 
chanced  to  any  man — or,  more  especially,  any 
woman. 


XIII 

THE  KINGS 

IT  is  still  summer  with  the  kings,  God  save 
them ! — a  summer  that  has  lasted  for 
many  of  them  over  a  thousand  years. 
They  make  as  brave  a  show  to-day  as  ever  in 
the  past.  It  is  said  they  are  neither  loved  nor 
feared  so  much  as  of  old,  and  I  know  not  how 
that  may  be;  but  of  this  I  am  sure,  that  the 
glory  of  kings  is  the  envy  of  the  world.  The 
sunlight  gilds  their  palaces  and  royal  capitals, 
and  strikes  through  the  many-hued  windows  of 
their  cathedrals  in  which  they  deign  to  accept 
a  homage  second  only  to  that  paid  to  Divinity 
itself.  God  is  in  His  heaven,  and  they  are  on 
their  hundred  thrones. 

And  these  thrones  are  quite  as  safe  to-day 
as  in  the  olden  time  when  few  or  none  doubted 
that  the  kings  were  set  upon  them  by  Divine 
Will.  Thousands  of  armed  men  watch  day 
and  night  to  guard  their  peace.  Cannon  flank 
the  entrances  to  their  castles  and  palaces.  The 
197 


198  AN  ATTIC  DREAMER 

life  of  the  king  is  the  chief  care  and  preoccu 
pation  of  every  people — many  starve  that  he 
may  live  as  befits  his  royal  state — many  die  in 
battle  that  his  throne  may  be  secure.  Yet  it  is 
true,  as  in  the  olden  time,  that  a  king  falls  now 
and  then  under  the  assassin's  hand;  and  the 
wisdom  of  man  has  never  rightly  explained  this 
seeming  failure  of  the  providence  of  God.  But 
there  is  a  lot  for  kings  as  for  common  men, 
and  accidents  prove  nothing.  Kingship  is  still 
the  best  job  in  the  world — and  there  are  no 
resignations.  Once  in  a  while,  it  is  true,  an 
abdication  has  to  be  declared  on  account  of  the 
imbecility  of  some  crowned  head — but  think 
how  long  kings  have  been  breeding  kings! 
What  wonder  that  the  distemper  should  now 
and  then  break  out  in  the  royal  stud? 

It  is  summer  with  the  kings.  They  have 
never  been  a  costlier  luxury  than  they  are  to 
day,  except  that  they  are  not  suffered  to  make 
war  so  often.*  Yet  the  world  continues  to 
pay  the  price  of  kings  with  gladness,  and 
though  we  have  heard  so  much  of  the  rising 
tide  of  democracy,  it  has  not  wet  the  foot  of  a 
single  throne  in  our  time.  No  doubt  it  will 
sweep  over  them  all  some  day,  but  our  chil- 

*  Written  before  the  Great  War,   1914-1918! 


THE  KINGS  199 

dren's  children  shall  not  see  it.  There  is  hardly 
a  king  in  Europe  whose  tenure  is  not  quite  as 
good  as  that  of  our  glorious  Republic.  King 
ship  is  even  a  better  risk  than  when  Canute 
set  his  chair  in  the  sands  of  the  shore.  Wrap 
it  up  in  what  shape  of  mortality  you  please — 
let  it  look  out  boldly  from  the  eyes  of  a  real 
king,  as  rarely  happens;  let  it  peer  from  under 
the  broken  forehead  of  a  fool  or  ogle  in  the 
glances  of  a  hoary  old  Silenus, — it  is  still  the 
one  thing  in  the  world  which  absolutely  com 
pels  reverence.  Other  forms  of  authority  are 
discounted  more  and  more;  the  Pope  who  once 
had  rule  over  kings,  sees  his  sovereignty 
dwindled  to  a  garden's  breadth;  the  chiefs  of 
republics  wield  a  precarious  power,  often  with 
out  respect :  the  glory  that  hedges  a  king  re 
mains  undiminished  and  unaltered.  The  kings 
owe  much  to  God,  and  God  owes  something 
to  the  kings — when  the  world  shall  have  seen 
the  last  of  these,  it  will  perhaps  discard  the 
old  idea  of  Divinity.  But,  as  I  have  said  al 
ready,  that  will  take  a  long,  long  time — so  long 
that  it  is  quite  useless  to  form  theories  on  the 
subject. 

It  is  summer  with  the  kings.     Nowhere  such 
radiant,    golden   summer    as    in   royalty-loving 


200          AN  ATTIC  DREAMER 

Germany.  There,  big  thrones  and  little  thrones 
— such  a  lot  of  them ! — are  all  sound  and  safe 
— sounder  and  safer  than  some  of  the  royal 
heads  that  peer  out  from  them.  There  the 
play  of  kingship  has  been  played  with  the  best 
success  to  an  audience  that  seldom  criticizes 
and  never  gets  tired  nor  steals  away  between 
the  acts.  If  the  good  God  composed  this  play, 
— as  so  many  people  piously  believe, — then 
He  must  hold  the  honest  Germans  in  special 
favor — as  an  author  He  can  not  but  be  flat 
tered.  That  he  does  so  hold  them  is  evident 
from  His  permitting  them  to  triumph  over 
those  incomparably  better  actors,  the  French.* 
This  charming,  prosaic,  joyous,  antiquated, 
picturesque,  yet  somewhat  dull  pageant  of 
royalty  goes  on  in  Germany  forever.  If  it  ever 
came  to  a  stop  for  but  one  day,  we  may  be  sure 
the  honest  sun  that  has  beamed  approvingly 
upon  it  for  centuries  would  do  likewise.  The 
people  fully  believe  that  God  wrote  the  play, 
and  they  cling  the  more  fondly  to  the  belief  for 
the  reason  aforesaid — that  it  is,  like  them 
selves,  a  little  dull.  And  what  matters  the 
sameness  of  the  plot  or  the  occasional  inca 
pacity  of  the  leading  actors,  since  the  proper- 

*In  1870-1871. 


THE  KINGS  201 

ties  are  as  rich  as  ever  and  the  stage-setting 
worthy  of  the  best  representations  in  the  past? 
Yes,  it  is  summer  with  the  kings,  and  never 
have  they  seemed  safer  on  their  hundred 
thrones.  But  now  as  ever  in  the  long  story  of 
kingship,  their  safety  lies  not  so  much  in  their 
castles  and  forts,  their  arms  and  sentinels,  their 
myriad  spies  and  their  hundred-handed  police. 
Not  so  much  in  these  things  as  in  the  sufferance 
of  the  patient  people,  and  also  their  childlike 
enjoyment  of  the  old  play.  From  time  to  time 
the  end  of  the  piece  is  predicted;  but  it  has 
had  a  famous  run,  and  it  will  surely  keep  the 
boards — while  there  is  summer  with  the  kings. 

II 

SOME  time  ago  I  wrote  that  it  was  sum 
mer  with  the  kings,  but  wondrous  is  the 
change  wrought  within  a  few  short  months. 
Now  instead  of  golden  summer,  with  the  cour 
tier  sun  gilding  their  palaces  and  domes  and 
towers,  and  all  the  world  eager  to  win  a  smile 
of  them,  a  ray  of  royal  favor, — there  is  win 
ter,  black  with  dread,  lurid  with  rebellion,  and 
sinister  with  every  threat  of  treason  and 
anarchy. 

Though  the  kings  yet  hold  some  show  of 


202  AN  ATTIC  DREAMER 

sovereignty,  they  are  as  prisoners  in  their  own 
strong  places,  beleaguered  by  the  victorious 
people  and  feeling  no  trust  in  the  very  guards 
of  their  person.  The  grand  palaces  are  closed 
up  and  deserted,  and  the  splendid  cathedrals, 
in  which  so  often  the  Te  Deum  has  been  raised 
in  celebration  of  some  royal  victory,  are  now 
dark  and  silent,  save  for  the  threnody  of 
mourning  bells. 

Yes,  it  is  winter  with  the  kings.  Panic,  ter 
ror  and  wild-eyed  unrest  hold  the  place  of  that 
mailed  security  which  had  sate  at  scornful  ease 
there  during  a  thousand  years.  The  kings  look 
fearfully  forth  from  their  strong  towers  and 
castles,  marking  the  flames  of  revolution  that 
creep  steadily  nearer  and  hearing  the  distant 
shouts  of  the  advancing  army  of  rebellion.  No 
heart  of  grace  do  the  kings  find  in  the  thick 
ness  of  the  encompassing  walls  or  the  yet  un 
broken  ranks  of  their  soldiery.  For  every  wind 
is  now  the  courier  of  some  new  treason  or  blow 
at  their  power.  Fealty  is  become  a  snare  that 
watches  its  chance  to  kill  or  betray — he  that 
rides  forth  with  the  royal  command  shall  turn 
traitor  ere  yet  he  hath  passed  the  shadow  of 
the  towers.  It  is  marvellous  how  loyalty  de 
serts  a  falling  kingl 


THE  KINGS  203 

Come  now  the  priests  in  their  most  gorgeous 
vestments  and  bearing  their  most  sacred 
images  to  cheer  and  console  the  dejected 
monarch.  Of  their  fidelity  he  is  at  least  as 
sured,  for  to  him  and  him  alone  they  owe  the 
grandeur  of  their  state.  But  alas !  what  are 
priests  to  a  king  who  has  lost  his  people?  .  .  . 
nay,  they  but  remind  him  in  his  bitter  despair 
of  that  Power  which  "hath  put  down  the 
mighty  from  their  seat  and  hath  exalted  them 
of  low  degree".  Idly  as  he  had  often  marked 
the  solemn  words,  they  come  back  to  him  now 
with  a  terrible  weight  of  meaning.  Almost  he 
could  bring  himself  to  spit  upon  these  fawning 
priests  who  had  ever  feared  to  show  him  the 
naked  purport  of  the  accusing  test  that  now 
pierces  his  heart  like  a  sword.  And  he  turns 
away  from  their  mummeries  lest  he  should  cry 
out  against  the  treachery  of  their  God  and  his 
who  has  thus  abandoned  him  in  his  need. 

It  is  winter  with  the  kings.  That  old  habit 
of  loyalty  and  obedience  which  held  their 
thrones  as  if  mortised  and  tenoned  in  granite, 
has  vanished  in  an  hour.  Oh,  the  kings  can 
not  see  how  long  it  took  to  mine  and  shatter 
their  rock  of  sovereignty,  and  they  blindly  re 
gard  as  the  madness  of  a  moment  what  has 


204          AN  ATTIC  DREAMER 

been  the  patient  labor  of  centuries.  Do  not 
flout  them  in  their  fallen  state  by  telling  them 
that  no  hands  wrought  so  busily  at  the  work 
of  destruction  as  their  own.  Have  pity  on  the 
humbled  kings ! 

But  wait! — all  can  not  yet  be  lost.  Call  in 
the  leaders  of  the  people  and  let  us  pledge  our 
kingly  word  anew  to  grant  the  things  they  ask. 
'Tis  but  a  moment's  humiliation  and  the  fools 
will  be  content  and  huzza  themselves  back  into 
our  royal  favor.  Think  you  we  do  not  know 
the  cattle?  Ho,  there! — let  the  varlets  be 
shown  into  our  presence. 

Alas,  Sire! — it  is  now  too  late.  Hard 
though  it  be  to  credit,  the  besotted  people — 
pardon,  Sire,  for  reporting  the  accursed  heresy 
— have  at  last  abandoned  that  to  which  they 
fondly  clung  in  anguish  and  misery  and  trial, 
against  even  the  evidence  and  reason  of  their 
brute  minds,  and  in  spite  of  all  that  your  royal 
ancestors  could  do  to  alienate  and  destroy — 
their  faith  in  kings! 

But  this  is  madness! — it  can  not  be.  What 
will  the  infatuate,  misguided  wretches  do  with 
out  their  sovereign?  Answer  us  that! 

Craving  your  gracious  pardon,  Sire,  they 
will  do  as  well  as  they  can.  And  from  what 


THE  KINGS  205 

we,  your  humble  councillors,  can  learn,  they  ex 
pect  to  make  shift  with  a  saucy  jade  wearing 
a  Phrygian  cap,  whom  they  name  Lib 
erty  !  .  .  . 

It  is  winter  with  the  kings,  but  summer  with 
the  peoples  who  have  waited  long  enough  for 
their  turn.  Lustily  are  they  girded  up  and 
made  ready  for  the  gleaning.  Boldly  and 
unitedly  they  march  upon  the  ripe  and  waiting 
fields  which,  so  often  sowed  with  their  blood 
and  sweat,  they  now  claim  for  their  very  own. 
God  grant  they  may  bring  the  harvest  home ! 


XIV 

LOUIS  THE  GRAND 

Yes,  I  like  to  dream  of  the  rare  old  time 

When  Louis  the  Grand  was  King; 
And  here  I  am  moved  to  say  in  rhyme 

What  his  poets  might  not  sing: — 
The  mask  of  powder  and  scent  and  lace, 

The  court  with  its  splendors  gay, 
The  sly  intrigues,  with  their  wicked  grace, 

And  the  King's  own  part  in  the  play. 
[My  Favorite  Poet] 

AMONG  kings  the  star  performer  was 
easily    Louis    Fourteenth    of    France. 
He    knew    his    role    better    than    any 
crowned  mime  that  has  ever  lived.     He  was 
perfect  in  every  detail  of  its  business,  and  of 
all  men  who  have  worn  a  crown  he  left  the 
largest  and  most  flattering  memory  of  himself. 
The   story   of   Louis    Fourteenth   has   been 
variously  told,  and  most  people  agree  that  it 

is  one  of  the  most  interesting  in  the  world.    In 

206 


LOUIS  THE  GRAND  207 

truth,  Clio  has  lavished  upon  it  much  of  her 
art  and  not  a  little  of  her  irony.     There  have 
been  many  attempts  to  depreciate  Louis,  or  at 
least  to  measure  him  by  merely  human  stand 
ards — without   exaggeration,   he   was   God   to 
his  own  world  as  much  as  Caesar  Augustus  was 
to  his.     The  Jacobins  during  the   Revolution 
dragged  him  from  his  royal  tomb  and,  apply 
ing  a  tailor's  tape  to  the  cadaver,  found  that 
he  was  a  few  inches  shorter  than  his  Court  be 
lieved.     But  it  seems  to  me  that  they  should 
have    allowed    for    shrinkage.      Voltaire    the 
mocker  who,  though  a  courtier,  was  no  great 
lover  of  kings,  writes  of  Louis  with  as  much 
respect   as  he   could  command.      The  terrible 
rictus — the  grin — flickers  out  here  and  there, 
to  be  sure,  but  for  the  most  part  Monsieur 
Arouet  keeps   his   countenance   well.      An   ex 
cellent  judge  of  ability  in  kings  and  commoners, 
there  is  no  doubt  that  he  regarded  Louis  as 
an  able  man.     As  a  mere  man  he  was  never 
thought  of  by  his  own  world  during  the  long 
years  of  his  grandeur.     People  could  not  look 
at  him  without  a  sun-dazzle  in  their  eyes — that 
glory  which  shut  out  so  much  waste  of  blood 
and    treasure,    such    ruinous    devastation    of 
peaceful  lands,  such  misery  among  the  serfs  of 


208          AN  ATTIC  DREAMER 

the  soil,  such  terror  of  conscription  stalking 
abroad  everywhere  like  a  universal  Death  I 

Daudet  tells  a  pretty  story  of  a  young 
dauphin  of  France  who,  with  charming  naivete, 
alluded  to  God  as  "Our  Cousin".  Louis  had 
too  much  taste  to  make  such  a  solecism,  but 
had  he  done  so  we  may  be  sure  the  Court  would 
not  have  minded  it,  and  the  Archbishop  of 
Paris  would  have  offered  no  objection.  Heaven 
was  never  so  near  any  place  on  this  earth  as 
it  was  to  Versailles  in  those  days.  When 
Madame  de  Maintenon  complained  to  her 
brother  that  she  could  not  endure  the  burden 
of  her  relations  with  the  King,  he  remarked, 
"Perhaps  you  have  an  idea  of  marrying 
Almighty  God!" 

There  were  some  great  men  in  the  time  of 
Louis  the  Grand,  but  nobody  thought  of  in 
sulting  the  King  by  a  comparison  with  his 
sovereign  Majesty.  Truly  the  world  never 
saw  a  more  finished  actor.  Great  generals 
trembled  when  ushered  into  the  Presence  and 
scarcely  dared  look  above  the  King's  knee. 
Racine,  the  greatest  poet  of  the  age,  having 
written  something  which  gave  his  Majesty  of 
fence,  actually  went  home  and  died  of  grief 
because  Louis  would  not  speak  to  him.  This 


LOUIS  THE  GRAND  209 

is  the  saddest  of  his  tragedies.  There  was  also 
a  caterer  who  killed  himself  in  the  most  heroic 
manner  because  a  supply  of  fresh  fish  had 
failed  to  reach  Versailles  in  time  for  the  King's 
dinner.  In  short,  all  persons,  high  or  low, 
shared  in  the  illusion  produced  by  the  power 
and  grandeur,  and  above  all,  the  personality 
of  Louis.  For  him  all  poets  sang,  all  sculptors 
carved,  all  painters  painted.  Comedy  gave 
him  her  brightest  smiles  and  Tragedy  her  rar 
est  tears;  while  in  his  august  cause  on  a  hun 
dred  bloody  fields  the  crested  chivalry  of 
France  rode  smiling  to  death ! 

But  nowhere  was  the  dominion  of  Louis  so 
absolute  as  in  the  hearts  of  the  women.  For 
women  love  a  King — God  bless  them! — and 
worship,  especially  of  a  man,  is  second  nature 
to  them.  Therein  is  the  secret  of  their  passion 
ate  attachment  to  royalty  in  every  age  and 
country,  and  doubtless  also  of  their  devotion  to 
the  Church,  in  which  the  same  idea  is  symbo 
lized.  Madame  de  Sevigne  was  as  clever  a 
woman  as  ever  lived,  with  a  most  penetrating 
look  into  human  nature  and  much  experience 
of  life.  Yet  her  letters  betray  that  she  was 
under  the  universal  illusion  as  to  Louis,  and  if 
there  be  scandal  in  the  Court  of  Heaven,  it 


210          AN  ATTIC  DREAMER 

could  not  be  whispered  more  delicately  than 
Madame  de  Sevigne  does  it. 

Perhaps  as  an  artist  the  King  makes  the 
most  favorable  showing  in  his  affairs  with 
women,  and  to  many  readers  this  is  the  most 
attractive  part  of  his  wonderful  history.  How 
he  contrived  to  carry  on  his  amours,  in  view 
of  the  whole  Court,  without  loss  of  dignity  and 
even  with  perfect  decorum,  is  as  choice  a  bit 
as  Clio  has  in  her  wallet.  He  never  bungled, 
or  hurried,  or  made  a  mess  of  matters,  or  for 
got  an  instant  that  he  was  King.  In  this,  as 
in  all  other  things,  he  was  truly  magnificent, 
and  the  lady  upon  whom  his  choice  happened 
to  fall,  though  she  were  among  the  proudest 
and  loftiest  in  the  realm,  was  consumingly  en 
vied  for  and  scarcely  deemed  herself  worthy 
of  the  intended  honor. 

The  King's  choice  of  a  new  favorite  was 
usually  announced  by  a  gorgeous  fete  designed 
to  express  the  royal  desire.  Very  soon  every 
body  was  in  the  secret,  including  the  Queen, 
who  no  doubt  had  the  earliest  intimation  of  it, 
and  whose  admirably  resigned  conduct,  under 
such  trying  circumstances,  was  perhaps  as 
creditable  to  Louis  as  any  exploit  sculptured 
on  his  monuments.  There  were  several  sue- 


LOUIS  THE  GRAND  211 

cessive  favorites,  but  Louis  was  not  a  volup 
tuary,  in  the  worst  sense,  and  he  never  kept  a 
half-dozen  mistresses  in  commission  at  once, 
like  the  Merry  Monarch  across  the  Channel. 
Versailles  under  Louis  never  ceased  to  be  a 
palace.  Whitehall  under  Charles  the  Second 
became  and  long  remained  a  brothel.  A  deli 
cate  odor  of  romance  still  hovers  about  the 
adulteries  of  Louis;  the  amours  of  the  Stuart 
belong  to  the  pornography  of  history. 

Another  point  of  difference :  the  women 
whom  Louis  had  honored  with  his  august  affec 
tions  never  betrayed  and  disgraced  him,  like 
the  concubines  of  Charles,  and  upon  his  leav 
ing  them,  never  turned  to  other  men  for  con 
solation.  Aut  Casar,  aut  nullus!  Like  the 
lovely  La  Valliere,  they  went  into  convents,  or 
like  the  superb  Montespan,  withdrew  from  the 
Court.  It  was  doubtless  of  the  La  Valliere 
that  Voltaire  was  thinking  when  he  said  that 
women  give  themselves  to  God  when  they  are 
no  longer  acceptable  to  men. 

The  King  was  very  liberal  to  his  lady 
friends,  as  well  he  might  be,  since  it  was  al 
lowed  that  he  owned  all  the  wealth  of  the 
country,  and  it  cannot  be  denied  that  he  spent 
it  accordingly.  He  showered  titles  and  estates 


212          AN  ATTIC  DREAMER 

upon  his  mistresses,  and  made  no  distinction 
between  his  bastards  and  the  legitimate  royal 
issue.  In  this  he  proved  that  a  strong  man  can 
overrule  every  convention.  Louis's  mistresses 
were  in  turn  the  true  queens  of  France,  and 
alliance  with  his  bastards  was  eagerly  sought 
by  the  noblest  houses  in  the  kingdom. 

Strange  to  say,  although  Louis  was  one  of 
the  best  Catholics  in  the  world,  the  Church 
seems  to  have  winked  at  these  little  irregulari 
ties.  Bossuet  the  eloquent  never  made  them 
the  subject  of  a  sermon  delivered  in  the  pres 
ence  of  the  great  Monarch.  In  his  old  age, 
however,  Louis  did  penance  for  his  good  times 
by  revoking  the  Edict  of  Nantes  and  causing  a 
great  persecution  of  his  Protestant  subjects. 
Some  writers  ascribe  this  foolish  and  cruel  act, 
so  contrary  to  Louis's  natural  kindness,  to  the 
influence  of  Madame  de  Maintenon,  who  was 
first  the  mistress  and  then  the  privately  wedded 
but  unacknowledged  wife  of  the  King.  This 
lady  was  far  from  being  the  most  beautiful  of 
his  mistresses,  but  she  outpointed  them  all  in 
sense  and  tact.  She  was  of  a  deep  religious 
cast  of  mind,  which  in  that  age  was  not  deemed 
inconsistent  with  the  acceptance  of  such  pleas 
ures  as  fell  to  ladies  of  high  station.  The  rec- 


LOUIS  THE  GRAND  213 

onciling  of  piety  and  pleasure  was,  in  truth,  the 
consummate  comedy  of  the  reign  of  Louis  the 
Grand. 

I  have  taken  the  somewhat  original  view  that 
Louis  was  an  artist,  since  he  shaped  his  life  in 
such  superb  fashion,  and  came  tardy  off  neither 
in  his  least  nor  greatest  efforts. 

I  add  a  proof:  Does  not  the  coquetry  of  the 
artist  speak  in  his  leaving  to  the  world  the  un 
solved  mystery  *  of  the  Man  in  the  Iron  Mask? 

*  For  the  solution  of  this  long  baffling  enigma,  which  was 
too  much  even  for  the  keen-witted  Voltaire,  see  the  Author's 
"Adventures  in  Life  and  Letters." 


XV 

DINING    WITH    SCHOPENHAUER  * 

I  WAS  dining  lately  at  Mouquin's,  alone. 
You  had  better  not  so  dine  there,  unless 
you  have  reached  that  melancholy  climac 
teric,  "a  certain  age" — (I  do -not  plead  guilty 
myself).  It  is  not  good  for  men  to  dine  alone 
at  Mouquin's,  and  it  is  even  worse  for  Mou 
quin's.  All  here  is  planned  for  sociability  and 
the  sexes — the  menu  is  a  paean  of  sex  as  frankly 
declarative  as  a  poem  of  Walt  Whitman's; 
the  wines,  the  suave,  light-footed  French  wait 
ers  (really  French),  seeing  all  and  nothing,  the 
softly  refulgent  electric  bulbs,  the  very  genius 
of  the  place,  all  bespeak  that  potent  instinct 
which  harks  back  to  the  morning  of  the  world. 
One  sees  it  in  the  smallest  matters  of  detail  and 
arrangement.  Elsewhere  there  is  room  and 
entertainment  for  the  selfish  male,  but  here — 
go  to !  The  tables  are  not  adapted  for  solitary 

*  Since  we  are  now  under  the  Dry  Dispensation,  I  reprint 
this  bit  of  impressionism  mainly  for  historic  reasons. — M.  M. 
214 


DINING  WITH  SCHOPENHAUER   215 

dining;  at  the  very  tiniest  of  them  there  is 
room  for  two :  an  arrangement  that  would  have 
moved  the  irony  of  Schopenhauer,  and  that 
signalizes  the  grand  talent  of  Monsieur  Mou- 
quin.  To  conclude,  a  solitary  diner  is  an  em 
barrassment,  a  reproach,  a  fly  in  the  ointment 
of  Monsieur  Mouquin.  I  was  all  three  to  him 
lately,  but  I  make  him  my  most  profound  apolo 
gies — it  shall  not  occur  again.  Why,  I  am  now 
to  tell. 

I  was  dining  at  Mouquin's  alone,  and  it 
seemed  as  if  the  spirit  of  Schopenhauer  sud 
denly  descended  upon  me,  who  had  been  there 
so  often,  joyous  and  joyously  companioned. 
The  waiter  took  my  order  with  a  veiled  hint 
of  disapproval  in  his  manner.  He  forgot,  too, 
that  he  was  of  Mouquin's  and  therefore,  an 
teriorly  of  Paris — he  spoke  English  far  too 
well  for  the  credit  of  the  house.  At  Mouquin's, 
you  know,  the  wines  and  the  waiters  are  alike 
imported.  I  knew  what  the  waiter  was  think 
ing  about — I  felt  and  understood  his  subtly  in 
sinuated  reproach:  I  was  alone.  There  was  no 
person  of  the  opposite  sex  with  me  to  double 
or  treble  the  bill,  and  to  obey  whose  slightest 
hinted  wish  the  garden  would  fly  with  winged 
feet,  a  la  Mercure.  Decidedly  it  is  a  violence 


216          AN  ATTIC  DREAMER 

to  the  Parisian  waiter  to  dine  alone  at  Mou- 
quin's,  for  it  robs  him  of  that  pleasing  incen 
tive  which  is  essential  to  the  perfect  exhibition 
of  his  art.  I  do  not  qualify  the  phrase — the 
French  waiter  at  Mouquin's  is  an  artist,  and 
never  more  so  than  when  he  rebukes  me,  word 
lessly  and  without  offence,  for  dining  alone. 

However,  I  was  a  good  deal  worse  than  be 
ing  alone  or  in  company,  for  have  I  not  said 
that  Schopenhauer  was  with  me?  Do  you 
know  Schopenhauer?  Is  he  anything  more 
than  a  name  to  you, — that  giant  sacker  of 
dreams,  that  deadly  dissector  of  illusions,  that 
pitiless  puncturer  of  the  poetry  of  the  sexes, 
that  daring  exposer  of  Nature's  most  tenderly 
cherished  and  vigilantly  guarded  secrets,  whose 
thought  still  lies  like  a  blight  upon  the  world? 
Do  you  know  his  beautiful  theory  of  love  which 
is  as  simple  as  the  process  of  digestion,  and  in 
deed  very  similar  to  it?  Once  in  Berlin  an 
enthusiast  spoke  in  Schopenhauer's  presence  of 
the  "immortal  passion".  The  Master  turned 
upon  him  with  his  frightful  sneer  and  asked  if 
his  bowels  were  immortal !  .  .  . 

When  Actaeon  surprised  the  chaste  Diana 
at  her  bath,  he  was  merely  torn  to  pieces  by 
his  own  hounds.  Schopenhauer's  punishment 


DINING  WITH  SCHOPENHAUER   217 

for  betraying  the  deepest  arcana  of  Nature  was 
worse,  yet  not  worse  than  the  crime  merited- 
he  was  compelled  to  eat  his  own  heart!  .  .  . 
Not,  I  grant  you,  a  cheerful  table-mate  for  a 
dinner  at  Mouquin's,  when  the  lights  glow 
charmingly,  and  the  bustling  waiters,  the  in 
coming  guests,  the  rustling  of  skirts,  the  low 
laughter  indicative  of  expectancy,  and  the  con 
fused  yet  agreeable  murmur  of  voices — the 
bass  or  baritone  of  the  men  mingled  with  the 
lighter  tones  of  the  women — announce  a  joy 
ous  evening.  Charming  fugue,  in  which  a  deli 
cate  ear  may  detect  every  note  of  appetite  and 
passion,  though  the  players  use  the  surd  with 
the  most  artistic  precaution.  (Mouquin's  is 
the  most  discreet  and  admirably  regulated  of 
cafes.)  Polite  overture  to  the  orgasm  of  the 
Belly-God  and  perhaps  to  the  satisfaction  of 
certain  allied  divinities  whom  I  may  not  spec 
ify.  Admirable  convention,  by  which  men  and 
women  come  in  sacrificial  garments,  or  evening 
attire,  to  worship  at  the  shrine  of  the  Flesh. 

The  climacteric,  perhaps?  My  dear  sir, 
when  I  tip  the  waiter  to-night,  I  can  get  him  to 
say  easily  that  I  am  not  a  day  over  thirty.  .  .  . 

Throughout  the  large  room  (we  are  up 
stairs,  gentle  reader)  the  tables  are  filling  rap- 


2i8  AN  ATTIC  DREAMER 

idly  with  well-dressed  men  and  women.  Noth 
ing  in  their  appearance,  generally,  to  challenge 
remark;  a  conventional  crowd  of  male  and  fe 
male  New  Yorkers,  intent  on  a  good  dinner  and 
subsidiary  enjoyments.  For  the  first  time,  per 
haps,  I  notice  how  pleasant  it  is  to  observe 
everything  at  leisure,  without  having  to  talk 
to  anyone — you  really  can  not  see  things  in  a 
detached,  philosophic  manner  when  you  have 
to  jabber  to  a  pretty  woman. 

A  clerical-looking  gentleman,  with  a  severe 
forehead,  is  one  of  my  near  neighbors.  His 
companion  is  a  handsome  young  woman,  rather 
highly  colored,  who  seems  more  at  home  than 
the  forehead.  A  couple  take  the  table  next  to 
mine;  the  young  fellow  is  well-looking  enough, 
the  girl  has  the  short,  colorless,  indeterminate 
American  face,  with  its  pert  resolve  to  be 
pretty;  both  are  young  and  have  eyes  only  for 
each  other — that's  the  point.  They  sit  down 
to  the  table  as  if  preparing  for  the  event  of 
their  lives;  this  eager  young  expectancy  is 
smilingly  noted  by  others  than  myself. 

A  large  man  convoying  three  heavy,  ma 
tronly  women  who  yet  do  not  look  like  mothers 
— you  know  that  familiar  New  York  type — 
takes  a  favorable  station  against  the  wall 


DINING  WITH  SCHOPENHAUER   219 

where  there  is  much  room  for  eating  and 
whence  the  outlook  is  commanding.  The  large 
one  perjures  himself  fearfully  in  explaining 
how  he  had  it  specially  reserved.  I  know  him 
for  a  genial  liar,  and  maybe  the  ladies  do,  too. 
These  four  have  evidently  come  to  eat  and 
drink  their  fill,  and  to  look  on:  Schopenhauer 
is  no  concern  of  theirs,  nor  they  of  his. 

Not  so  this  elderly  man  with  the  dashing 
young  woman  on  his  arm — the  man  is  too  hand 
some  to  be  called  old,  in  spite  of  his  white  hair. 
The  young  woman  has  that  look  of  complete 
self-possession  and  easy  tolerance  which  such 
young  women  commonly  manifest  toward  their 
elderly  admirers — this  is  not  romance,  but  what 
is  generically  termed  the  "sure  thing".  Scho 
penhauer  is  but  faintly  interested,  and  my  eyes 
wander  toward  the  little  American  type.  She 
has  had  her  second  glass  of  wine  by  this  time, 
and  it  has  hoisted  a  tiny  flag  in  her  cheek.  A 
little  more  and  she  will  succeed  in  her  deter 
mination  to  be  pretty, — the  dinner  is  only  half 
under  way.  Schopenhauer  bids  me  note  now 
that  she  eats  with  undisguised  appetite,  and 
that  she  fixes  a  steadier  gaze  upon  her  young 
man  than  he  can  always  meet.  Both  young 
heads  are  together  and  they  eat  as  fast  as  they 


220          AN  ATTIC  DREAMER 

talk — but  youth  atones  for  all.  These  two 
continue  to  draw  the  gaze  of  most  persons  in 
their  vicinity. 

There  have  been  one  or  two  mild  selections 
by  the  orchestra,  but  they  passed  unnoticed  in 
the  first  stern  business  of  eating.  It  is  a  pity 
that  artists  should  be  subjected  to  such  an  in 
dignity,  but  it  can  not  well  be  avoided  by  artists 
who  play  for  hungry  people.  The  leader  of 
Mouquin's  orchestra — perhaps  I  should  say 
the  orchestra  at  Mouquin's — is  a  young  man 
with  a  high  forehead  and  long  hair.  I  am  not 
a  critic  of  music,  like  my  friend  James  Huneker, 
and  I  am  unhappy  in  the  difficult  vocabulary 
which  that  gifted  writer  employs.  But  it  seems 
to  me  the  conductor  and  first  violinist  at  Mou 
quin's  is  an  artist.  A  veritable  artist!  No 
doubt  I  shall  be  laughed  at  for  this — I  have 
said  that  I  am  ignorant  of  the  technique  of 
criticism. 

When  the  orgasm  of  eating  had  in  a  degree 
subsided,  Schopenhauer  nudged  me  to  observe 
how  the  company  began  to  give  some  attention 
to  the  music  and  even  to  applaud  a  little.  Ah, 
it  was  then  the  young  leader  seemed  grand 
and  inspired  to  me.  He  looked  as  if  he  did 
not  eat  much  himself;  and  his  music — some- 


DINING  WITH  SCHOPENHAUER    221 

thing  from  Tannhauser — fell  on  my  ears  like 
a  high  rebuke  to  those  guzzling  men  and 
women.  I  do  not  know  for  sure  what  the 
"motif"  of  it  was  (this  word  is  from  James 
Huneker),  but  the  refrain  sounded  to  me  like, 
"Do  not  be  swine!  Do  not  be  swine!" 

The  swine  were  in  no  way  abashed — per 
haps  they  did  not  understand  the  personal  allu 
sion.  I  have  read  somewhere  in  James  Hune 
ker  that  the  Wagnerian  "motif  is  often  very 
difficult  to  follow. 

II 

WE  had  reached  the  coffee,  that  psychic 
moment  when  the  world  is  belted  with 
happiness;  when   all  our  desires  seem   attain 
able;  when  with  facile  assurance  we  discount 
the  most  precious  favors  of  love  or  fortune. 

"You  will  now  observe,"  whispered  my  in 
visible  guest,  "that  with  these  animals  the 
present  is  the  acute  or  critical  moment  of  diges 
tion,  from  which  result  many  unclaimed  chil 
dren  and  much  folly  in  the  world.  The  edge 
of  appetite  has  been  dulled,  but  there  is  still  a 
desire  to  eat,  and  the  stage  of  repletion  is  yet 
to  be  reached.  These  animals  now  think  them 
selves  in  a  happy  condition  for  the  aesthetic 


222  AN  ATTIC  DREAMER 

enjoyment  of  art  and  even  for  the  raptures  of 
love.  They  have  been  fed." 

The  terrible  irony  of  the  tone,  more  than 
the  words,  caused  me  to  turn  apprehensively; 
but  no  one  was  listening,  and  my  hat  and  coat 
occupied  the  chair  where  should  have  sat  my 
vis-a-vis. 

With  the  coming  of  the  cordials  and  the 
lighting  of  cigarettes,  the  music  changed  to 
gayer  measures.  The  young  maestro's  head 
was  thrown  back  and  in  his  eye  flamed  the  fire 
of  what  I  must  call  inspiration,  in  default  of 
the  proper  phrase  or  hunekerism;  while  his 
bow  executed  the  most  vivid  lightning  of 
melody.  This  was  the  moment  of  his  nightly 
triumph,  when  his  artist  soul  was  in  some  de 
gree  compensated  for  the  base  milieu  in  which 
his  genius  had  been  set  by  an  evil  destiny.  He 
now  saw  before  him  an  alert,  appreciative  audi 
ence,  instead  of  an  assembly  of  feeding  men 
and  women.  For  the  moment  he  would  not 
have  changed  places  with  a  conductor  of  grand 
opera. 

"Note  that  foolish  fellow's  delusion,"  said 
Schopenhauer.  "I  have  exposed  it  a  hundred 
times.  He  thinks  he  is  playing  to  the  souls, 
the  emotions  of  all  these  people,  and  he  plumes 


DINING  WITH  SCHOPENHAUER   223 

himself  upon  his  paltry  art.  They  also  are  a 
party  to  his  cheat.  He  is  really  playing  to 
their  stomachs,  and  their  applause,  their  ap 
preciation,  is  purely  sensual.  Yet  I  will  not 
deny  that  he  is  doing  them  a  service  in  assisting 
the  process  of  digestion;  but  it  is  purely  physio 
logical,  sheerly  animal.  The  question  of  art 
does  not  enter  at  all,  any  more  than  the  ques 
tion  of  love  does  in  the  mind  of  yonder  old 
gentleman  who  has  eaten  and  drunk  too  well, 
and  is  now  doting  with  senile  desire  upon  that 
young  woman." 

I  noticed  indeed  that  the  elderly  gentleman 
had  become  gay  and  amorously  confidential, 
while  his  companion  smiled  often  with  affected 
carelessness,  yet  seemed  to  be  curiously  ob 
servant  of  his  every  word  and  gesture.  But 
their  affair  was  no  matter  for  speculation. 

I  glanced  toward  the  clerical  gentleman  with 
the  severe  forehead.  Both  he  and  the  fore 
head  had  relaxed  perceptibly,  and  there  was 
evident  that  singular  change  which  takes  place 
when  a  man  doffs  the  conventional  mask  of  self. 
His  lady  friend  seemed  disposed  to  lead  him 
further.  No  romance  here,  I  thought.  .  .  . 
"It  is  the  stuff  of  all  romances,"  snarled  Scho 
penhauer. 


224          AN  ATTIC  DREAMER 

The  heavy  women  waddled  out  once  or  twice 
to  the  retiring  room  and  came  back  to  drink 
anew.  No  man  looked  at  them,  save  in  idle 
curiosity — they  were  beyond  tempting  or  temp 
tation.  "These  represent  the  consummate 
flower  of  the  sexual  or  passional  instinct,"  re 
marked  the  sage.  "Gross  as  they  now  seem, 
they  were  once  young  and  what  is  called  de 
sirable.  They  yielded  fully  to  their  animal 
requirements — they  ate,  drank  and  loved,  or  to 
speak  more  correctly,  digested — with  such  re 
sults  as  we  now  see." 

I  shuddered  .  .  .  but  the  large  women  were 
indubitably  enjoying  themselves. 

There  was  more  music — the  guests  ap 
plauded  ever  the  more  generously.  The  leader 
now  condescended  like  a  veritable  artist — 
abas  I  e  cafe! 

I  noticed  that  my  little  American  beauty  left 
the  room  (without  her  wraps)  a  bit  unsteadily, 
and  came  back  presently,  very  high  in  color.  A 
drink  was  waiting  for  her,  and  she  began  talk 
ing  with  her  young  man  as  if  he  and  she  were 
alone  in  the  world.  I  noticed  also  that  the 
young  man  carried  his  liquor  rather  better  and 
seemed  to  shrink  a  little  under  the  eyes  at- 


DINING  WITH  SCHOPENHAUER   225 

tracted  by  the  girl's  condition.     In  my  ear  I 
heard  the  sardonic  whisper  of  Schopenhauer: 
"They  call  this  love!"  .  .  . 

I  would  rather  dine  with  a  pretty  woman  at 
Mouquin's  or  elsewhere,  than  with  any  philoso 
pher,  living  or  dead.  Especially  Schopen 
hauer:  a  has  the  climacteric! 


XVI 

ON  LETTERS 

THE  pleasantest  thing  in  the  world  to 
receive  is  a  good  letter. 
Our  dearest  literary  joys  are  not 
to  be  weighed  in  comparison;  indeed  they  are 
not  at  all  of  the  argument,  for  we  share  them 
with  many.  But  a  letter — a  true  letter  I  would 
say — belongs  to  us  in  an  intimate  and  peculiar 
sense;  something  in  ourselves  has  summoned  it, 
and  perhaps  the  deepest  source  of  our  pleasure 
is,  that  it  could  not  have  been  written  to  an 
other. 

For  it  takes  two  to  make  a  true  letter — one 
to  inspire  and  one  to  write  it;  one  to  summon 
and  one  to  send. 

Such  a  letter  is  the  child  of  love,  and  we 
rightly  hold  ourselves  blessed  for  it.  A  few 
such  letters — none  of  us  can  expect  many — 
make  shining  epochs  in  our  lives. 

But  these  letters  are  of  the  rarest,   and  I 

would  now  speak  rather  of  such  as  we  may  not 
226 


ON  LETTERS  227 

too  uncommonly  hope  to  receive,  supposing 
(egotistically)  we  have  that  in  us  which  has 
grace  to  summon  them. 

A  genuine  letter  is  the  best  gift  and  proof  of 
friendship.  No  man  can  write  it  who  is  only 
half  or  three-quarters  your  friend;  he  might 
give  you  money — this  he  could  not  give. 

I  have  sometimes  been  convinced  that  a  man 
was  heartily  my  friend  until  I  received  a  letter 
from  him  which  showed  me  my  error.  Not  in 
deed  that  such  was  his  desire,  nor  could  I  point 
out  the  word  or  phrase  that  enlightened  me. 
I  knew — that  was  all. 

This  will  perhaps  seem  the  very  opposite  of 
the  truth  to  persons  who  have  never  considered 
the  matter  deeply,  and  who  think  nothing  is  so 
easily  given  and  obtained  as  a  letter.  But  I  am 
writing  for  those  who  understand. 

If  you  have  ever  been  deceived  in  your 
dreams  of  friendship,  look  now  over  those  old 
letters  you  kept,  and  you  will  wonder  how  you 
could  have  cheated  yourself;  the  truth  you  were 
once  blind  to,  stares  out  from  every  written 
page.  It  was  there  always,  but  your  self-love 
would  not  see. 

Into  every  real  letter  the  soul  of  the  writer 
passes.  It  is  this  that  gives  a  fabulous  value 


228  AN  ATTIC  DREAMER 

to  the  letters  of  great  and  famous  persons  con 
cerning  whom  the  world  is  ever  curious — mak 
ers  of  history,  poets,  warriors,  kings  and 
criminals,  queens  and  courtesans,  all  who  for 
good  or  evil  cause^  have  gained  a  lasting  re 
nown.  The  collectors  are  justified  by  a  psy 
chology  which  few  of  them  can  penetrate. 

The  letters  of  some  persons  of  whom  we 
possess  not  a  scrap  of  writing,  would  be  abso 
lutely  priceless. 

Is  there,  for  example,  enough  worth  in 
money  to  estimate  the  value  of  a  letter  written 
by  the  hand  of  JESUS?  Can  you  imagine  any 
thing  that  would  so  thrill  the  world?  .  .  . 

Or,  to  take  a  lower  and  more  probable  in 
stance  :  A  First  Folio  of  Shakespeare  is  worth 
several  thousand  dollars,  and  the  owner  of  one 
never  has  to  haggle  for  his  price — the  book  it 
self  is  the  ready  money.  The  number  of  copies 
in  the  world  is  accurately  known,  as  well  as  the 
fortunate  owners.  Some  rich  men  are  content 
with  the  distinction  of  possessing  this  rare  vol 
ume,  and  they  would  like  to  have  the  fact  men 
tioned  on  their  tombstone.  Well,  a  genuine 
letter  of  Shakespeare's — say  to  "Mr.  W.  H.", 
for  example — would  probably  be  worth  more 
than  all  the  First  Folios  in  existence.  True, 


ON  LETTERS  229 

the  poet  had  hardly  a  thought  or  sentiment  or 
idea  that  he  did  not  express  somewhere  in  his 
plays  or  poems.  No  matter — these  were  of 
public  note,  in  the  way  of  his  calling;  what  the 
world  wants  is  a  look  into  the  innermost  soul 
of  the  man  Shakespeare,  who  has  escaped  amid 
the  glory  of  the  poet.  A  letter!  a  letter! 

Charles  Lamb  offers  a  notable  proof  of  the 
superiority  of  genuine  letters  over  mere  literary 
compositions.  He  wrote  many  letters  to  his 
friends  from  his  high  stool  in  Leadenhall 
street;  letters  that  have  never  been  equalled  for 
quaint  humor,  shrewd-glancing  observation, 
kindly  comment  on  men  and  manners,  and, 
above  all,  the  intimate  revelation  of  one  of  the 
most  charming  personalities  ever  known.  Being 
thrifty  in  a  literary  sense,  and  by  no  means  a 
ready  writer — he  speaks  of  composing  with 
"slow  pain" — it  was  his  habit  to  make  his  per 
sonal  letters  do  a  double  service  by  turning 
them  into  essays  for  the  press — and,  generally, 
spoiling  them.  At  any  rate,  I  prefer  the  let 
ters. 

The  truth  behind  this  matter  is,  that  if  a 
man  be  capable  and  make  a  practice  of  writing 
many  good  letters,  he  will  surely  fall  off  in 
other  lines  of  literary  effort.  Renan  discov- 


230          AN  ATTIC  DREAMER 

ered  this  early  in  his  career,  and  was  very 
sparing  thereafter  of  letters  which  took  any 
thing  out  of  him  in  a  literary  way.  One  might 
call  this  a  sort  of  economy,  keeping  the  honey 
for  the  hive.  It  is  not  a  bad  plan,  in  a  thrifty 
sense,  but  this  article  can  not  sympathize  with 
it,  as  it  makes  for  the  poverty  of  letters. 

II 

ONE  hears  it  said  often  that  the  age  of 
letter-writing  is  past,  and  certainly  it  may 
be  granted  that  the  heavy  firing  in  this  depart 
ment  of  Literature  is  over  and  done  with. 
Chesterfield  and  Madame  de  Sevigne  we  have 
not  always  with  us,  save  in  their  classic  re 
siduum,  and  few  are  those  who  seek  to  chal 
lenge  their  long-maintained  primacy.  Letter- 
writing  is  regarded  as  "slow  work"  in  this 
rapid  age — there  are  the  telephone  and  tele 
graph,  those  arch-enemies  of  the  Epistolary 
Muse ;  and  alack !  there  is  the  typewriter,  that 
marvellous  aid  to  novelists  and  most  effectual 
kill-joy  of  the  letter-writer — why  this  should 
be  so  is  another  curious  point  of  psychology, 
but  so  it  is,  as  all  the  world  agrees. 

The    shy   Genius    of   Letter-writing   revolts 
from  this  mechanical,  public  contrivance  which 


ON  LETTERS  231 

must  have  everything  in  crude  black-and-white, 
and  permits  of  no  subtle  reticence  or  half-dis 
closure,  or  discreet  adumbration,  such  as  we 
may  confide  to  the  intimate  pen.  Perhaps  let 
ter-writing  went  out  with  the  advent  of  this 
so-called  Tool  of  Progress  and  multiplier  of 
Popular  Fiction.  Indubitable  it  is  at  any  rate 
that  while  the  blood  of  the  true  letter-writer 
circulates  genially  in  his  pen,  it  never  seems  to 
get  into  the  typewriter. 

Even  literary  persons  nowadays, — nay,  these 
particularly,  I  am  assured, — are  but  little  given 
to  the  gentle  art  of  letter-writing.  I  have  been 
astonished  by  the  inept,  spiritless,  even  dull  let 
ters  of  two  or  three  authors  of  my  acquaintance 
who  have  a  great  public  vogue  on  account  of 
their  reputed  wit  and  brilliancy; — one  would 
no  more  suspect  it  from  their  letters  than  from 
their  laundry-bills.  Why  this  anomaly? 
"Thrift,  Horatio,  thrift !"— these  gifted 
authors  bring  to  letter-writing  the  dregs  of 
their  minds,  saving  their  spirit,  grace,  charm 
and  sincerity  for  the  shop,  i.e.,  the  professional 
"copy".  The  vital  note  of  sympathy,  the  in 
stant  flow  from  mind  to  mind,  in  a  word,  all 
that  goes  to  make  a  genuine  letter,  is  vain  to 
seek  in  their  postal  effusions. 


232  AN  ATTIC  DREAMER 

However,  admitting  a  sensible  abatement 
and  falling  off  in  the  epistolary  province,  and 
allowing  that  the  classic  letter-writers  are  in 
no  danger  from  contemporary  rivalship,  I  be 
lieve  there  is  still  abundant  reason  for  hope 
and  comfort  on  the  part  of  all  who  cherish 
true  letters.  A  very  ancient  scribe  has  observed 
that  the  thing  which  hath  been  is  that  which 
shall  be.  So  I  think  one  is  justified  in  holding 
that  there  will  always  be  good  letters  written, 
and  especially  by  women — bless  their  kind 
hearts  and  busy,  fertile  minds ! — who,  literary 
or  unliterary,  have  from  the  first  use  of  post  or 
messenger  scribbled  off  the  best  letters  in  the 
world. 

And  why?  the  skeptical  reader  may  ask.  .  .  . 

It  is  a  large  subject  and  an  intricate,  com 
prehending  the  whole  difference  between  the 
sexes,  but  for  the  present  occasion  we  may  con 
tent  ourselves  with  this:  There  is  a  peculiar 
sort  of  abnegation  and  devotion,  an  unselfish 
and  naive  desire  to  please,  implicit  in  the  true 
letter-writer,  which  rarely  falls  to  the  endow 
ment  of  mere  Man!  It  must  also  be  conceded 
that  in  the  subsidiary  graces  of  the  epistolary 
art,  women  have  always  excelled  their  lords 
and  masters  (pre-Twentieth  century  style). 


ON  LETTERS  233 

Finally,  the  deepest  word  on  this  point  is  yet 
to  be  said,  and  it  is  suggested  by  the  Scriptural 
phrase,  "Out  of  the  mouths  of  babes  and  suck 
lings".  Goodness  and  purity,  loving  faith  and 
loyalty  will  continue,  as  always,  to  signalize 
this  medium  of  expression. 

I  have  said  that  women  write  the  best  let 
ters,  and  for  their  dear  sake  I  shrink  not  from 
what  is  both  a  truism  and  a  tautology.  Should 
I  ever  be  able  to  acknowledge  the  debt  I  owe 
them? — to  pay  it  were  not  possible,  even  in 
dreams.  There  is  dear  "E.  W.  W.",  who 
came,  a  late  blessing  into  my  life,  just  when  I 
sorely  needed  such  a  friend,  and  who  sends  me 
frequently  of  her  rich  store  of  wisdom  and 
sweetness  and  strength,  though  her  pen  knows 
no  rest  and  the  publishers  will  not  be  denied. 
Strange ! — I  find  in  these  gracious  letters,  alive 
with  the  breath  of  her  spirit,  something  that 
even  she  is  unable  to  express  in  her  public  writ 
ings — or  is  it  the  vitality  of  the  personal  note, 
the  concentrated  challenge  of  the  intimate 
word,  that  makes  me  think  so?  ...  There  is 
charming  "T.  G.",  more  beautiful  even  than 
her  poetry,  who  writes  too  seldom  (thriftiest 
she  of  the  daughters  of  the  Muse),  but  each  of 
whose  joyous  letters  fills  with  light  the  happy 


234  AN  ATTIC  DREAMER 

week  of  its  arrival.  And  UD.  H.",  who  was 
not  long  ago  "D.  M." — what  pleasure  have  I 
not  received  from  her  demure  gayety  and  the 
sweet  cordial  note  of  her  letters!  .  .  .  And 
"E.  R.",  who  was  even  more  recently  UE.  H." 
(ah,  happy  he  who  won  her  gracious  youth !)  — 
in  what  book  shall  I  find  a  hint  of  her  tricksy 
humor  and  bewitching  pertness?  .  .  .  And 
UB.  A.",  whose  pensive  spirit  ever  seeking  the 
Unknown,  often  startles  me  with  its  clear 
divinations — the  privilege  of  the  white-souled. 
.  .  .  And  "T.  S.",  whose  prattling  pen  has 
given  me  cheer  when  weary  and  cast  down,  and 
who  is  so  near  to  me  in  faith  and  sympathy, 
though  I  have  never  looked  into  her  candid 
eyes.  And  "S.  B.",  the  sweet  silent  Quakeress, 
who  too  rarely  writes,  and  the  thought  of 
whom  often  lies  like  a  sinless  peace  upon  me. 
But  let  me  cite  no  more  lest  I  tempt  the  envious 
fates  by  a  rash  disclosure  of  my  joys. 

All  these  most  fragrant  friendships,  enrich 
ing  my  else  flowerless  life  with  beauty  and 
grace  and  precious  consolation, — giving  me  in 
deed  the  rarer  life  of  the  spirit, — do  I,  though 
undeserving,  hold  .  .  .  through  letters. 


XVII 

THE  SONG  THAT  IS  SOLOMON'S 

THERE  is  always  a  Jewish  renaissance, 
and  that  is  why  we  have  lately  been 
talking  about  the  beauty  of  the 
Jewess. 

It  is  a  great  theme  and  there  is  none  other 
in  the  world  charged  with  more  sweet  and  ter 
rible  poetry. 

The  beauty  of  the  Jewish  woman  is  the  eter 
nal  witness  of  the  great  epic  of  the  Bible.  If 
that  divine  Book  were  to  be  lost  in  some  un 
thinkable  catastrophe,  it  could  be  re-written 
wholly  from  the  lips  and  eyes  of  Jewish  beauty. 

In  no  long  time  we  should  have  again  the 
complete  stories  of  Sarah  and  the  daughters  of 
Lot  (those  forward  but  provident  young  per 
sons)  ;  of  tender-eyed  Leah,  of  Rebekah  and 
Rachel,  sweet  rivals  in  love;  of  Deborah  and 
Hagar  and  Jael;  of  Ruth,  that  pensive  figure 
whom  so  many  generations  have  strained  to 
see,  "standing  breast-high  amid  the  corn";  of 
235 


236  AN  ATTIC  DREAMER 

Rahab  the  wise  harlot  and  Jezebel  the  furious; 
of  Tamar  who  played  her  father-in-law  Judah 
so  shrewdly  wanton  a  trick;  of  Esther  who 
fired  the  heart  of  the  Persic  king,  saving  hon 
est  Mordecai  a  painful  ascension  and  much 
slaughter  of  the  Chosen  People;  of  Susanna, 
whom  the  elders  surprised  in  her  bath,  not  the 
first  nor  the  last  instance  of  the  folly  of  old 
men;  of  Bathsheba,  the  fatal  "one  ewe  lamb" 
or  wife  of  Uriah,  the  lust  for  whose  perfect 
body  drove  the  holy  king  David  to  blood- 
guiltiness;  of  the  Shulamite  (lacking  a  name) 
whom  Solomon,  son  of  David,  has  sung  to  the 
world's  ravishment;  lastly — why  not? — of  her 
who  has  glorified  Israel  among  the  Gentiles 
and  hath  honor  beyond  all  the  daughters  of  the 
earth, — Mary  of  Bethlehem. 

In  this  way,  I  repeat,  the  Bible  could  easily 
be  put  together  again — it  can  never  perish 
while  a  Jewish  woman  remains  on  the  earth. 

There  never  was  a  book  written  (worthy  of 
the  name)  but  that  was  more  or  less  directly 
inspired  by  a  woman.  Cherchez  la  femme  is 
the  true  theory  of  literary  origins. 

This  is  eminently  true  of  the  Bible,  with 
which  women  have  had  (and  still  have)  more 


THE  SONG  THAT  IS  SOLOMON'S  237 

to  do  than  with  any  other  book  in  the  history 
of  the  world. 

The  beauty  of  Jewish  women  is  a  wine  that 
needs  no  bush;  it  is  the  sacred  treasure  that 
kept  alive  the  hope  of  the  race  during  the  weary 
ages  of  shame  and  bondage.  But  for  that 
jealously  guarded  talisman,  the  Jew  would 
long  ago  have  lost  both  place  and  name  upon 
the  earth. 

Much  of  the  old,  consecrated,  fatidic  charac 
ter  attaches  to  the  Jewish  woman  of  the  better 
class,  even  in  this  faithless  day.  She  is  hon 
ored  above  the  wife  of  the  Gentile,  and  she  is 
conscious  of  a  mission  which  fills  her  with  the 
pride  of  an  immemorial  race.  One  fancies  that 
no  other  woman  either  inspires  or  returns  love 
in  such  measure  as  the  Jewess;  that  she  has 
some  profound  joys  to  give  whose  secret  she 
alone  possesses.  The  Jew  has  found  in  his 
home  compensations  for  all  the  cruelty  and 
ignominy  which  he  has  had  to  suffer  from  the 
world. 

I  admire  true  Jewish  beauty  so  much  that  I 
would  make  a  slight  discrimination.  Not  all  the 
Grecian  women  were  Helens,  and  it  need  not 
be  said  that  the  highest  type  of  beauty  among 
Jewish  women  is  less  often  seen  than  praised. 


238          AN  ATTIC  DREAMER 

In  truth,  the  rule  holds  good  here,  that  great 
beauty  and  great  ugliness  are  found  side  by 
side. 

One  reason  for  this  is,  undoubtedly,  the  bad 
taste  of  the  average  Jew,  who  can  not  have  his 
women  fat  enough  and  who,  therefore,  en 
courages  such  departures  from  the  ideal  stand 
ard  as  serve  to  caricature  the  natural  beauty 
and  comeliness  of  Hebrew  women.  I  believe 
there  are  Jews  who  would  like  to  grow  their 
women  in  a  tub,  according  to  the  mediaeval 
method  of  producing  monstrosities.  This  bad 
taste  the  Jew  comes  by  as  a  part  of  his  Orien 
tal  inheritance — the  Turk  similarly  fattens  his 
women  with  all  kinds  of  sweetmeats  and  suets. 
On  account  of  this  vicious  taste  among  too 
many  Jews,  one  often  sees  women  of  hideous 
corpulence  at  thirty  who  were  types  of  ideal 
beauty  at  sixteen.  Flesh  is  a  good  thing,  but 
the  Jew  should  not  seek  to  suffocate  himself  in 
it,  like  Clarence  in  his  Malmsey  butt.  Certes, 
it  was  not  for  an  excess  of  "adipose  tissue" 
that  the  Royal  Poet  named  his  love  the  rose 
of  Sharon  and  the  lily  of  the  valleys. 

Let  the  Jewish  woman,  therefore,  vigilantly 
cherish  the  wonderful  beauty  which  has  come 
down  to  her  from  those  historic  sisters  of  her 


THE  SONG  THAT  IS  SOLOMON'S  239 

race  whom  kings  desired  with  a  passion  that 
kindled  the  land  to  war,  whom  prophets  and 
sages  glorified,  with  whom  heroes  and  mar 
tyrs  walked  and  concerning  whom  God  Him 
self  has  written  many  of  the  best  pages  in  His 
own  Book.  Let  her  keep  as  near  as  she  can  to 
the  ideal  of  loveliness  which  the  great  king, 
drunk  with  beauty  and  rapture,  pictured  thou 
sands  of  years  ago  in  the  lineaments  of  his 
Beloved: — 

Thy  lips  are  like  a  thread  of  scarlet  and  thy 
speech  is  comely;  thy  temples  are  like  a  piece 
of  pomegranate  within  thy  locks. 

Thy  two  breasts  are  like  two  young  roes 
that  are  twins  which  feed  among  the  lilies. 

Thy  lips,  O  my  spouse,  drop  as  the  honey 
comb;  honey  and  milk  are  under  thy  tongue 
and  the  smell  of  thy  garments  is  as  the  smell 
of  Lebanon. 

Thy  neck  is  like  a  tower  of  ivory.  Thine 
head  upon  thee  is  like  Carmel,  and  the  hair  of 
thine  head  like  purple :  the  king  is  held  in  the 
galleries.  How  fair  and  how  pleasant  art 
thou,  O  love,  for  delights ! 


XVIII 

IN  PRAISE  OF  LIFE 

I  HAVE  to  thank  the  many  loyal  friends 
who  gave  me  their  sympathy  and  support 
during  an  illness  that  cut  nearly  three 
months  out  of  my  working  calendar  and  sus 
pended  two  issues  of  The  Papyrus  *  To  have 
learned  that  there  is  such  a  stock  of  pure  kind 
ness  in  the  world,  is  worth  even  the  price  I 
paid  for  it. 

The  desire  of  life  prolongs  it,  say  the  doc 
tors.  'Tis  true,  and  when  the  wish  for  life 
gets  its  force  from  the  strong  motive  of  doing 
one's  chosen  work  in  the  only  world  we  surely 
know,  then  is  Death  driven  back  and  to  Life 
goes  the  victory. 

Oh!  Life,  Life,  how  much  better  art  thou 
than  the  shadowy  hope  of  an  existence  beyond 
the  grave !  I  can  hold  thee,  taste  thee,  drink 
thee,  wrap  myself  in  thee — thou  art  a  most 
dear  reality  and  not  a  shadow.  I  kneel  before 

*  April  and  May,  1904. 
240 


IN  PRAISE  OF  LIFE  241 

thee  and  proclaim  myself  more  than  ever  thy 
true  lover,  believer  and  worshipper.  Let  me 
still  be  a  joyous  living  pagan  and  I  will  not 
change  with  all  the  saints  that  have  spurned 
thee  and  gone  their  pale  way  to  Nothingness. 
I  breathe  thy  warm,  perfumed  air  as  one  newly 
escaped  from  the  ante-chamber  of  Death.  It 
is  the  last  week  of  May — sweet  May,  I  had 
thought  never  to  see  thee  again! — and  the 
whole  world  is  fragrant  with  lilac.  It  is  an 
efflorescence  of  life  and  hope  and  joy,  Nature's 
largess  after  the  dearth  and  desolation  of  win 
ter.  My  soul  is  inundated  with  the  golden 
waves  of  light  and  warmth  and  melody.  Some 
thing  of  the  sweetness  and  vague  longing  of 
adolescence  revives  in  my  breast.  My  heart 
trembles  with  a  sudden  memory  of  old  loves,  a 
memory  called  up  by  the  sunshine  and  lilac 
scents  and  bird  music  with  which  the  glad 
world  is  running  over.  Youth  smiles  a  sly 
challenge  at  me,  and  Love  holds  forth  his  in 
effable  promise.  I  am  drunk  with  the  rapture 
of  May — for  I  live  ...  I  live  ...  I  live ! 

Henley  the  brave,  who  not  long  ago  cap 
tained  his  soul  out  into  the  Infinite,  was  moved 
by  his  experiences  in  hospital  to  write  some  of 


242  AN  ATTIC  DREAMER 

his  most  striking  poems.     No  doubt  there  is 
matter  enough  for  a  poignant  sort  of  poetry 
in  the  House  of  Sickness.    But  literary  inspira 
tion  fails  a  man  when  both  his  mind  and  body 
are   disintegrating.      I   have   brought  nothing 
from  my  white  nights  in  the  hospital,  but  I 
left  there  a  good  deal  of  myself  corporeally, 
and  something,  as  I  am  admonished  by  a  pres 
ent  difficulty  in  writing — of  my  admirable  liter 
ary  style.    I  think  with  pain  and  shame  of  the 
utter  weakness  to  which  I  was  then  reduced, 
and  I  wince  at  the  recollection  of  some  con 
cessions  wrung  from  dismantled  nature.     I  do 
not  care  to  reflect  upon  the  long  blank  hours 
or  days,  or  weeks,  during  which  I  kept  my  bed 
in  passive  endurance,  or  upon  one  terrible  night 
when  I  waited  for  what  seemed  to  be  the  End 
with  such  courage  as  I  could  command.     Ac 
cording  to  the  Christian  precept,  I  should  have 
seen  in   all  this  the  hand  of   chastening  and 
meekly  accepted  the  portion  dealt  out  to  me. 
But  had  I  yielded  to  this  comfortable  sort  of 
spiritual  cowardice,  I  should  probably  not  be 
alive  to  tell  the  story.     Many  good  Christians 
are  thus  soothed  out  of  this  weary  life  into  a 
better  world,   for  a  mental  attitude  of  pious 
resignation  is  the  hardest  condition  with  which 


IN  PRAISE  OF  LIFE  243 

the  doctor  has  to  contend  and  an  unrivalled 
fattener  of  graveyards. 

In  the  next  room  to  mine  was  a  fine  young 
man  who  had  undergone  an  operation  for  ap 
pendicitis.  The  nurses  told  me  there  was  no 
hope  for  him,  as  he  had  been  brought  in  too 
late — the  nurses  never  contradict  the  doctors. 
Poor  fellow,  I  could  hear  his  every  sigh  and 
groan  in  the  vain  but  heroic  struggle  he  was 
making  for  life.  Presently  a  stout  clean-shaven 
man  in  clerical  garb  passed  my  door:  it  was 
the  minister.  He  remained  about  ten  minutes 
with  the  young  man,  who  was  a  member  of  his 
church.  When  he  left  I  watched  from  my  win 
dow  and  saw  him  mount  his  bicycle  and  ride 
away.  He  did  not  return.  The  young  man 
died  next  day.  I  made  up  my  mind  more  de 
cidedly  that  I  would  get  better. 

As  a  boy  I  used  to  read  in  my  prayer  book 
the  supplication  against  the  "evil  of  sudden 
death".  In  this  is  contained  the  very  essence 
of  the  Christian  idea,  since  death  being  synony 
mous  with  judgment,  must  needs  appear  terri 
ble  to  the  soul  unprepared.  Indeed,  a  sudden 
death  in  the  case  of  an  irreligious  person  is 
always  hailed  as  a  judgment  by  people  of  strict 


244          AN  ATTIC  DREAMER 

piety.  On  the  other  hand,  the  favor  of  heaven 
is  shown  by  the  grace  of  a  long  sickness  with  its 
leisure  for  repentance  and  spiritual  amend 
ment.  No  picture  is  so  edifying  in  a  religious 
sense  as  that  of  the  repentant  sinner,  over 
whom  we  are  told  there  is  more  rejoicing  in 
heaven  than  is  called  forth  by  the  triumph  of 
the  just.  Especially  if  the  sinner  have  repented 
barely  in  time  to  be  saved — that  is  the  crucial 
point.  If  he  should  make  his  peace  too  soon, 
or  if  his  repentance  should  come  tardy  off,  it  is 
not  difficult  to  fancy  the  angels  cheated  of  their 
due  excitement.  Such  a  blunderer  would,  I 
imagine,  get  more  celestial  kicks  than  compli 
ments.  God  help  us ! — I  fear  me  these  death 
bed  repentances  are  the  sorriest  farce  acted  in 
the  sight  of  heaven. 

Yet  farcical  as  they  are,  religion  owes  to 
them  a  great  part  of  its  dominion  over  the 
conscience  of  men.  The  Catholic  faith,  in  par 
ticular,  has  invested  the  final  repentance  and 
absolution  with  a  potency  of  appeal  which  few 
indeed  are  able  to  withstand.  That  is  the 
meaning  of  the  phrase,  "Once  a  Catholic,  al 
ways  a  Catholic".  And  there  is  doubtless  a 
grandeur  subduing  the  imagination  in  the 
proud  position  of  the  Church,  that  no  soul  need 


IN  PRAISE  OF  LIFE  245 

be  lost  which  has  ever  known  her  sacraments. 
Whatever  the  cold  reason  may  make  of  this 
assumption,  we  may  not  forget  how  much  it 
has  contributed  to  the  peace  and  consolation  of 
humanity. 

As  for  myself,  having  had  two  long  and 
desperate  sicknesses  in  the  course  of  a  half- 
dozen  years, — having  been  so  near  the  Veil 
which  hides  the  Unknown  that  I  could  have 
touched  it, — my  prayer  now  and  forever  shall 
be :  Lord,  deny  us  not  the  blessing  of  sudden 
death.  Even  as  quickly  as  Thou  pleasest,  call 
us  hence,  O  Lord! 

To  be  at  home  once  more  in  mine  own  place, 
to  sit  under  the  cheerful  lamp  with  pipe  and 
book,  to  taste  the  small  honors  of  domestic 
sovereignty,  to  look  forward  with  a  quiet  hope 
to  the  morrow's  task,  to  watch  the  happy  faces 
of  the  children  in  whom  my  youth  renews  it 
self,  and  to  share  the  peace  of  her  who  has  so 
long  partnered  my  poor  account  of  joy  and 
sorrow — all  this  is  a  blessedness  which  I  feel 
none  the  less  that  I  do  not  weary  a  benign 
Providence  with  fulsome  praise. 

Many  pious  works  have  been  written  on  the 
incomparable  advantage  of  being  dead, — that 


246          AN  ATTIC  DREAMER 

is,  on  the  superior  felicity  of  the  life  to  come. 
The  most  eloquent  and  convincing  of  these 
macabre  essays  were  composed  by  a  set  of  men 
who  had  resigned  nearly  all  that  makes  life 
dear  to  humanity.  It  is  enough  to  say  that  they 
knew  not  love,  the  most  powerful  tie  that  at 
taches  us  to  life.  On  this  account  their  valu 
able  works  no  longer  enjoy  the  great  popu 
larity  which  they  had  in  a  simpler  time.  In 
deed,  the  decline  of  this  religious  Cult  of  Death 
is  one  of  the  marks  of  an  advancing  civiliza 
tion.  No  doubt  it  served  a  humane  purpose  in 
those  dark  centuries  which  we  call  the  Ages  of 
Faith,  when  life  was  far  more  cruel  than  it 
now  is  for  the  mass  of  mankind.  Amid  con 
stant  wars,  bloodshed,  oppression,  famine,  and 
their  attendant  evils,  from  which  only  a  privi 
leged  few  were  exempt,  what  wonder  that  men 
turned  eagerly  to  a  gospel  which  to  us  seems 
charged  with  despair?  So  the  ages  of  history 
during  which  Hell  was  most  completely  and 
perfectly  realized  on  this  earth,  were  also 
those  in  which  faith  in  Heaven  and  the  Church 
was  universal.  But  with  the  slow  growth  of 
liberty  and  the  partial  emancipation  of  the 
human  conscience  during  the  past  three  centu 
ries,  there  has  gradually  been  formed  a  truer 


IN  PRAISE  OF  LIFE  247 

and  better  appreciation  of  life.  The  Cult  of 
Death  has  lost  its  hold  upon  the  masses,  with 
the  dissolution  of  the  old  terrible  dogma  of 
eternal  punishment.  Men  are  more  in  love 
with  life  at  this  day  than  ever  in  the  past — 
with  life,  and  love,  and  happiness,  and  free 
dom,  all  of  which  were  more  or  less  limited 
and  tabooed  in  the  blessed  Ages  of  Faith.  As 
Heine  said,  "Men  will  no  longer  be  put  off 
with  promissory  notes  upon  Heaven — they  de 
mand  their  share  of  this  earth,  God's  beautiful 
garden".  .  .  . 

Let  us  have  life,  and  ever  more  life  I 


XIX 

THE  FORBIDDEN  WAY 

I  AM  asked  if,  in  my  opinion,  suicide  is  ever 
justifiable. 
The   question   is   one    for   the    individual 
conscience.     Men  and  women  are  answering  it 
with  a  dreadful  yea,  yea,  every  day,  casting 
away  life  as  they  might  reject  a  worn-out  gar 
ment. 

By  social  consent,  founded  on  religious  feel 
ing,  suicide  is  a  crime  against  God.  It  is  also 
held  to  be  a  crime  against  society.  Persons 
attempting  suicide  and  failing  in  the  act  are 
subject  to  the  rigor  of  the  law.  No  legal  pun 
ishment  is  (of  course)  provided  for  those  who 
succeed,  but  they  do  not  escape  in  the  next 
world — the  churches  take  care  of  that:  all 
theologians  agree  that  the  suicide  is  eternally 
reprobate  and  damned. 

I  dissent  utterly  from  this  inhuman  teaching, 
while  I  can  conceive  of  no  circumstances  that 

would  make  suicide  justifiable  for  myself.     For 
248 


THE  FORBIDDEN  WAY         249 

so  dissenting  I  shall  be  told  that  I  render  my 
self  liable  to  damnation.  Is  it  not  strange  that 
a  man  should  be  damned  for  holding  too  favor 
able  an  opinion  of  God? 

But  it  may  not  be  so  bad  as  that — we  have 
only  some  men's  word  for  it! 

We  are  told  that  hardly  a  soul  comes  into 
the  world  but  at  some  time  or  other  thinks  of 
voluntarily  quitting  it,  and  is  only  restrained 
by  the  fear  of  eternal  punishment. 

I  would  change  this — I  would  make  life  here, 
present,  hopeful  and  abundant,  the  restraining 
influence.  I  would  pit  Life  against  Death  and 
turn  my  back  on  the  kingdom  of  shadows. 

I  do  not  defend  suicide,  but  I  plead  for  the 
many  upon  whom  fate  imposes  this  bitter  des 
tiny. 

For  myself  I  believe  that  life  at  the  very 
worst  is  too  precious  a  gift  to  throw  away. 
Steep  me  in  shame  and  sorrow  to  the  very  lips, 
exile  me  from  the  charity  of  my  kind,  pile  on 
my  bare  head  all  the  abuses  and  humiliations 
which  human  nature  is  capable  of  inflicting  or 
enduring — my  cry  shall  still  and  ever  be  for 
life,  more  life  1 

Though  the  wife  of  my  youth  should  betray 
me  again  and  again,  though  my  children  prove 


250          AN  ATTIC  DREAMER 

false  and  dishonor  my  gray  hairs,  though  my 
oldest,  truest  friends  abandon  me  and  I  be 
come  a  "fixed  figure  for  the  time  of  scorn  to 
point  his  slow  unmoving  finger  at", — still  shall 
I  cling  to  this  boon  of  life — life — life ! 

For  now  I  tell  you,  heart-burdened,  weary 
and  despairing  ones,  if  only  you  will  be  patient 
a  little  longer  and  wait,  life  itself  shall  heal 
your  every  sorrow. 

I  give  you  this  Gospel  of  Hope,  this  water 
of  refreshing  in  the  arid  desert  of  your  de 
spair 

Life  is  the  Healer,  Life  the  Consoler,  Life 
the  Reconciler! 

In  earlier  years  I  used  to  hear  the  most  elo 
quent  sermons  on  the  blessedness  of  death, 
which  always  left  me  cold  and  unpersuaded. 
To  such  gloomy  homilies  is  perhaps  due  the 
aversion  I  now  feel  toward  most  preaching. 
No !  talk  not  to  me  of  death,  that  ironic  Phan 
tom,  that  grisly  Sophist  by  whose  aid  religion 
maintains  the  unworthiest  part  of  its  conquest. 
I  hate  and  abominate  from  my  deepest  soul  this 
plausive,  solemn,  unctuous,  lying  cant  of  dark 
ness  and  the  grave.  He  that  preaches  fears 
it  as  much  as  he  that  hears,  and  will  move 


THE  FORBIDDEN  WAY         251 

heaven  and  earth  to  escape  the  inevitable  doom. 
Away  with  such  mummery  I 

Death  in  the  ripe  course  of  nature  is  beau 
tiful  and  seemly,  but  death  by  disease,  or  vio 
lence,  or  accident,  is  horrible,  for  no  man 
should  be  cheated  or  cheat  himself  of  his  due 
share  of  life.  And  this  which  is  now  an  empty 
axiom  shall  one  day  be  the  highest  law  of  a 
better  state  of  society  than  we  yet  dream  of, 
wherein  disease  shall  be  unknown  and  death 
by  violence,  public,  private,  or  judicial,  a  thing 
without  precedent. 

My  cry  is  for  life — more  life ! 

Look,  ye  impatient  ones — I,  too,  have  been 
down,  down,  down  in  those  abysmal  depths 
where  hope  is  a  mockery  and  the  mercy  of  God 
despaired  of;  I  have  tasted  the  bitterness  of 
betrayal  by  those  most  sacredly  pledged  to 
keep  faith  with  me;  I  have  known  the  utter 
most  treason  of  the  heart;  I  have  been  made 
to  feel  that  there  was  not  one  soul  in  all  the 
living  world  joined  to  me  by  any  true  or  lasting 
bond;  I  have  seen  the  destruction  of  my  own 
house  of  life,  that  temple  of  the  soul,  losing 
which  a  man  is  homeless  on  the  earth. 

And  yet  I  rose  out  of  this  lowest  hell  of  deso 
lation,  borne  as  I  must  believe  by  some  late- 


252          AN  ATTIC  DREAMER 

succoring,  strong-winged  Angel  of  Hope — and 
blessed  God  to  see  again  the  cheerful  face  of 
life! 

Little  children,  little  children,  the  end  of  all 
will  come  only  too  soon:  why  hasten  it?  The 
Master  of  Life  has  bidden  you  wait  His  sum 
mons.  By  my  soul !  I  do  not  believe  that  He 
would  harshly  reprove  you  or  turn  away  His 
face  should  you,  under  the  goad  of  sorrows  too 
great  for  endurance,  come  suddenly,  unbidden, 
before  Him.  Yet  were  it  better  to  stand  firm 
like  good  soldiers  and  abide  your  call. 

In  other  words,  you  are  not  to  accept  defeat. 
It  is  not  that  I  would  brand  as  coward  the  man 
who  boldly  pushes  his  way  into  the  Unknown — 
the  courage  of  that  act  is  so  appalling  that  men 
have  named  it  madness.  But  it  is  a  higher 
courage  to  resist  the  fates. 

Yet — whisper ! — I  do  not  find  it  hard  to  be 
lieve  that  often  God  in  His  mercy  shows  this 
only  way,  this  'via  dolorosa,  to  some  poor  lost 
soul,  some  victim  of  man's  inhumanity,  unable 
to  struggle  longer  in  the  coils  of  fate. 

To  me  the  most  awfully  pathetic  figure  in  a 
world  sown  with  tragedy  is  the  man  or  woman, 
broken  on  the  cruel  rack  of  life,  who  makes  a 
desperate  choice  to  find  his  or  her  way  alone  to 


THE  FORBIDDEN  WAY         253 

God.  Though  you  plant  no  cross  and  raise  no 
stone  upon  that  grave,  though  you  hide  it  away 
from  the  sight  of  men,  I  for  one  shall  not  deem 
it  a  grave  of  shame.  I  shall  kneel  there  in  spite 
of  priestly  anathemas;  I  shall  pray  for  this 
poor  child  of  earth  sainted  by  suffering;  my 
tears  shall  fall  on  the  despised  grave  where 
rests, — oh,  rests  well  at  last, — one  of  the  un 
counted  martyrs  of  humanity.  Yes !  I  see  in 
that  nameless  grave  huddled  away  in  the  pot 
ter's  field  a  symbol  of  the  tragedy  of  this  life 
whereunto  we  are  called  without  our  will  and 
whence  we  must  not  depart  save  in  the  process 
of  nature.  And  I  will  believe  that  God  re 
jects  the  poor  defeated  one  lying  there  when 
I,  a  mere  human  father,  feel  my  heart  turned 
to  stone  against  the  weakest  and  most  erring 
of  my  children. 


XX 

GLORIA   MUNDI 

HAVE  you  ever  really  thought  upon  the 
beauty  of  this  world  which  is  passing 
away   before   your   eyes?     You  have 
read  the  words,  "The  eye  is  not  satisfied  with 
seeing  nor  the  ear  with  hearing",  but  have  you 
ever    thought  that   they   might   bear   another 
sense  than  the  Holy  Book  gives  them? 

For  my  part,  when  I  come  to  die  I  know 
what  my  chief  regret  will  be.  Not  for  my  poor 
human  sins,  which  have  really  hurt  nobody  save 
myself  and  most  of  which  I  will  have  forgot 
ten.  Not  because  I  have  missed  the  laurel 
which  was  the  darling  dream  of  my  youth. 
Not  because  I  have  always  fallen  short  of  my 
ideal  and,  still  worse,  betrayed  my  own  dear 
est  hopes.  Not  for  the  selfish  reason  that  I 
have  never  been  able  to  gain  that  position  of 
independence  and  security  which  would  enable 
me  to  work  with  a  free  mind.  Not  for  having 
failed  to  score  in  any  one  particular  what  the 
254 


GLORIA  MUNDI  255 

world  calls  a  success.  Not  for  these  nor  any 
other  of  the  vain  desires  that  mock  the  human 
heart  in  its  last  agony. 

No;  I  shall  simply  be  sorry  that  I  failed  to 
enjoy  so  much  of  the  beauty  of  this  dear  earth 
and  sky,  or  even  to  mark  it  in  my  hurry  through 
the  days,  my  reckless  pleasures,  my  stupid  tasks 
that  yielded  me  nothing.  I  shall  think  with 
utter  bitterness  of  the  time  out  of  all  the  time 
given  me  I  might  have  passed  in  profitably 
looking  at  the  moon.  Or  in  marking  with  an 
eye  faithful  to  every  sign,  the  advance  of  the 
bannered  host  of  Summer  unto  the  scattered 
and  whistling  disarray  of  Autumn.  How  many 
of  those  wonderful  campaigns  have  I  really 
seen? — alas!  I  know  too  well  how  many  I 
have  numbered. 

There  was  a  rapture  of  flowing  water  that 
always  I  was  promising  myself  I  should  one 
day  explore  to  the  full;  and  now  I  am  to  die 
without  knowing  it.  There  were  days  and 
weeks  and  months  of  the  universe  in  all  its 
glory  bidding  for  my  admiration;  yet  I  saw 
nothing  of  it  all.  My  baser  senses  solicited 
me  beyond  the  cosmic  marvels.  I  lost  in  hours 
of  sleep,  or  foolish  pleasure,  or  useless  labor, 
spectacles  of  beauty  which  the  world  had  been 


256          AN  ATTIC  DREAMER 

storing  up  for  millions  of  ages — perhaps  had 
not  been  able  to  produce  before  my  brief  day. 
I  regret  even  the  first  years  of  life  when  the 
universe  seemed  only  a  pleasant  garden  to  play 
in  and  the  firmament  a  second  roof  for  my  fa 
ther's  house.  Grown  older  but  no  wiser,  I 
planned  to  watch  the  sky  from  dawn  to  sunset 
and,  on  another  occasion,  from  sunset  to  dawn; 
but  my  courage  or  patience  failed  me  even  for 
this  poor  enterprise.  I  was  a  beggar  at  a  feast 
of  incomparable  riches,  and  something  always 
detained  me  from  putting  forth  my  hand;  or  I 
left  the  table  which  the  high  gods  had  spread 
and  went  eating  husks  with  swine.  And  now  I 
am  to  die  hungry,  self-robbed  of  my  share  at 
the  banquet  of  immortal  beauty — can  Christian 
penitence  find  anything  to  equal  the  poignancy 
of  such  a  regret?  .  .  . 

Yet  even  as  I  write  I  am  cheating  myself  in 
the  old  bankrupt  fashion,  for  the  day  outside 
my  window  is  like  a  tremulous  golden  fire,  and 
the  world  overflows  with  a  torrent  of  green  life 
— life  that  runs  down  from  the  fervid  heaven 
and  suspires  through  the  pregnant  earth.  It  is 
the  first  of  June,  when  Nature,  like  a  goddess 
wild  with  the  pangs  of  delivery,  moves  the 
whole  earth  with  her  travail,  filling  every 


GLORIA  MUNDI  257 

bosom  with  the  sweet  and  cruel  pain  of  desire. 
Now  she  takes  account  of  nothing  that  does 
not  fecundate,  conceive  or  produce,  intent  only 
upon  securing  her  own  immortal  life.  And 
though  she  has  done  this  a  million  and  a  mil 
lion  ages,  yet  is  she  as  keen  of  zest  as  ever;  as 
avid  for  the  full  sum  of  her  desire  as  when  she 
first  felt  the  hunger  of  love  and  life;  as  un 
wearied  as  on  the  morning  of  Creation. 

"Put  away  your  foolish  task,"  she  seems  to 
say.  "Yet  a  few  days  and  it  and  you  will  both 
be  ended  and  forgotten.  Come  out  of  doors 
and  live,  while  the  chance  is  left  you.  Come 
and  learn  the  secret  of  the  vital  sap  that  is  no 
less  a  marvel  in  the  tiniest  plant  than  in  the 
race  of  man.  If  you  can  not  learn  that,  I  will 
teach  you  something  else  of  value — the  better 
that  you  ask  me  naught.  Leave  your  silly 
books  and  come  into  the  great  green  out-of- 
doors,  swept  clean  by  the  elemental  airs.  Here 
shall  you  find  the  answer  to  your  foolish  ques 
tion,  'What  do  we  live  for?' — Life  .  .  .  life 
.  life!" 


XXI 

THE    SPRING 

IT  IS  the  Spring  again. 
Not  merely  by  the  calendar,  dear  chil 
dren  of  mine  own  age,  but  also,  I  would 
hope,  by  your  hearts :  to  that  Spring  let  us  say 
our  word  of  welcome. 

I  am  writing  on  an  early  day  in  March.  It 
is  still  Winter,  so  far  as  snow  and  blow,  mere 
scenic  illusion,  goes:  but  a  certain  voiceless 
promise  in  the  air  unclothes  the  landscape  of 
its  remaining  rigors  and  makes  mock  at  the 
weather  man's  predictions.  With  the  Spring  at 
our  doors  we  shall  laugh  to  scorn  the  utmost 
rage  of  Boreas.  Let  him  do  his  worst — he 
must  go,  and  quickly  too! 

Yet  I  was  not  mindful  of  the  Spring  (for 
my  thoughts  were  on  a  less  cheerful  business) 
until  coming  home  t'other  evening  I  noticed  the 
lengthening  of  our  brief  twilight, — as  if  the  day 
had  been  pulled  out  one  stop;  and  standing  to 
look  at  the  sky,  with  its  unwonted  clear  space 
258 


THE  SPRING  259 

of  radiance,  there  came  a  rush  of  vernal  airs 
about  my  forehead,  and  I  felt  the  fulness  of  the 
Spring  within  my  heart. 

Oh,  may  the  Spring  ever  so  come  to  me  !  .  .  . 

Now  though  a  man  may  not  be  so  learned 
as  Solomon  in  what  some  other  inspired  writer 
has  called  the  "signs  of  Spring", — though  he 
be  indeed  but  a  humble  suburbanite  and  un- 
blest  amphibian,  neither  of  city  nor  country, 
he  may  feel  that  the  sun  'gins  to  be  hot  on  the 
back  along  about  noon.  May  see  that  the  snow, 
melting  off,  leaves  long  pools  in  the  road  and 
common  which  give  a  cheerful  brightness  under 
the  Spring  sun.  May  note  that  the  cock  crows 
oftener  and  with  a  more  resonant  pipe  than  in 
the  gray  Winter  dawns;  that  the  sap  is  rising 
in  the  willow  and  maple,  and  the  pioneer  robin 
shows  his  red  breast  among  the  sparrows' 
brown.  May  mark  within  himself  a  stirring  of 
sensations  and  desires  long  dormant  as  though 
the  old  Adam  had  turned  in  his  sleep.  May 
be  conscious  of  that  indefinable  sense  of  expec 
tancy  brooding  over  all  things  betwixt  earth 
and  heaven,  which  heralds  the  rebirth  of  the 
year. 

The  Spring  in  truth  has  a  tale  of  its  own, 
and  not  the  same  tale  for  every  man — like  love 


26o  AN  ATTIC  DREAMER 

itself,  ever  the  same,  yet  ever  different.  But 
of  all  its  messages  and  portents  I  chiefly  prize 
that  strange  quickening  of  the  pulse,  that 
fleeting,  unaccountable  rapture  of  the  heart, 
that  feeling  as  though  one  were  at  times  an 
aeolian  harp  played  upon  by  mysterious  airs, — 
a  reed  through  which  all  things  blow  to  music, 
— until  you  actually  have  to  stop  now  and  again 
when  walking  out-of-doors,  the  ravishment  and 
delight  of  it  being  more  than  you  can  bear. 

If  you  do  not  so  feel  the  Spring,  there  is,  I 
fear,  no  Spring  for  you. 

No  season  discourseth  so  wisely  and  witch- 
ingly  to  the  heart;  none  hath  so  much  of  that 
poignant,  unutterable  poetry  for  which  all  the 
poets  have  tuned  their  harps  in  vain.  Most 
ancient  of  deceivers,  her  cuckoo  note  is  aye 
potent  to  befool  the  world — not  a  wound,  not 
a  pang,  not  a  sorrow  is  remembered  in  the  heal 
ing  smile  of  Spring. 

The  truth  is,  we  are  never  so  much  in  love 
with  life  as  in  the  Spring.  It  involves  the 
whole  of  life — a  man  counts  his  Springs,  not 
his  Winters  or  Summers.  It  is  Nature's  renew 
al  and  confirmation  of  her  old  promise  to  us, 
which  each  interprets  in  a  jealous  way  he  would 
not  dare  confess  to  his  neighbor.  How  she 


THE  SPRING  261 

cheats  us,  and  how  we  love  the  cheat!  For  let 
us  but  admit  her  subtle  witchery  a  moment,  and 
then  (as  sweet  William  hath  it)  our 

"state, 

Like  to  the  lark  at  break  of  day  arising 
From  sullen   earth,    sings   hymns    at   heaven's 
gate!" 

Bankrupt  in  hope  indeed  is  he  to  whom  the 
Spring  doth  not  fetch  a  new  bravery  of  spirit, 
urging  him  to  try  another  and  a  gayer  hazard 
of  fortune.  Sick  of  a  truth  is  he  whose  feeble 
lungs  crow  not  with  a  specious  health  in  these 
enchanted  airs.  Dim  is  the  eye  that  fails  to 
mark  the  cheerful  lengthening  of  the  days. 
Cold  and  dead  the  heart  in  which  the  Spring 
awakes  not  a  dream  of  love. 

As  a  man  turns  into  middle  life  (sorely 
against  his  will)  I  think  he  is  apt,  on  looking 
back,  to  regret  chiefly  the  Springs  he  has  left 
behind.  If  there  were  to  be  a  seasonal  restitu 
tion,  I  can  promise  for  one  man  at  least,  that 
he  would  prefer  certain  Springs  to  a  more  than 
equal  count  of  Summers.  Early  Springs  I 
mean,  of  course;  the  wonder  and  romance  of 
which  pursue  us  as  with  a  vain  regret  during 
all  our  after-life,  so  that  we  seem  to  be  con- 


262  AN  ATTIC  DREAMER 

stantly  seeking  the  clew  to  some  beautiful  and 
marvellous  story  but  half  revealed  to  us  in  a 
dream. 

For,  in  truth,  the  enchantment  of  those 
Springs,  the  loveliness  and  mystery  and  desire 
of  them,  deepen  the  more  the  farther  we  go 
back  into  our  youth,  until  they  seem  but  a  con 
fused  yet  delightful  blowing  of  merry  winds 
and  a  mere  hide-and-seek  of  frolic  sunshine; 
beyond  which  Garden  of  Faery  it  is  forbidden 
to  pass. 

Why  a  man  should  be  more  concerned  to 
remember  and  treasure  up  his  early  Springs 
than  his  early  Summers,  this  old  child  con 
fesses  himself  unable  to  say. 

But  so  he  feels,  without  knowing  the  reason; 
and  now  more  than  ever,  since  the  Spring  hath 
again  laid  her  hand  upon  him. 


XXII 

THE    FIRST    LOVE 

In  dreams  she  grows  not  older 
The  lands  of  dream  among, 

Though  all  the  world  wax  colder, 
Though  all  the  songs  be  sung; 

In  dreams  doth  he  behold  her 
Still  fair  and  kind  and  young. 

ANDREW  LANG 

A  MAN  never  forgets  his  first  love,  how 
ever  early  in  life  it  may  have  come  to 
him;  through  all  the  ensuing  years  he 
bears  this  precious  blue  flower  of  the  heart. 
Even  amid  the  storms  of  later  passion,  or  the 
tranquil  joys  of  an  assured  love,  it  keeps  its 
unseen,  mysterious,  marvellous  life.     However 
the  heart  may  burn,  it  still  has  dew  enough  for 
this    unfading   blossom;    however    happy    and 
content  it  may  be  in  another  love,  yet  has  it  a 
secret   longing   which    only    this    can    appease. 
Aye,   though  the  heart  itself  be   as   a  temple 
263 


264          AN  ATTIC  DREAMER 

consecrated  to  another  woman,  where  Love  as 
a  priest  offers  perpetual  sacrifice,  yet  shall  you 
find,  deep  hidden  within  its  shrine  of  shrines,  a 
tiny  white  pyx  holding  the  sacred  Host,  the 
imperishable  dream  of  the  first  passion.  .  .  . 
Is  it  not  astonishing  how  early  we  begin  to 
love, — as  if  Nature  had  no  other  use  for  us? 
I  can  scarcely  remember  a  time,  however  dis 
tant  in  my  childhood,  when  I  was  not  in  love 
with  somebody.  Ah,  do  not  think  those  ear 
liest  troubles  of  the  heart  are  to  be  smiled  at 
as  children's  play.  Innocent  though  they  were, 
what  exquisite  sweet  pain  they  caused  us ! 
What  cruel  unhappiness,  since  to  be  young  and 
unhappy  seems  a  special  malignancy  of  fate ! 
What  ineffable  longings,  that  our  childish 
minds  vainly  sought  to  understand!  What 
torments  of  jealousy,  which  the  storms  of  ma 
ture  passion  have  been  impotent  to  efface ! 

Mamie !  The  name  will  never  lose  its  magic 
for  me,  and  to  the  end  it  will  continue  to  be 
whispered  from  my  dreams.  And  to  think  I 
have  now  a  daughter  older  than  she  was  when 
I  first  saw  and  loved  her.  O  time  the  inexor 
able!  .  .  . 

She  was  twelve  and  I  was  sixteen  when  we 


THE  FIRST  LOVE  265 

tasted  together  the  poignant  sweets  of  young 
passion,  the  delicious  fruit  of  that  one  forbid 
den  tree  in  the  earthly  Eden  which  to  eat  and 
enjoy,  humanity  will  ever  gladly  face  exile  and 
death. 

Yet  Mamie  was  only  a  little  girl  just  entering 
her  teens,  though  developed  like  a  child  ma 
donna,  and,  as  I  was  to  know,  with  feelings 
beyond  her  years.  I  have  never  seen  anything 
like  the  proud  beauty  of  her  face  with  its  glori 
ous  hazel  eyes,  rich  brown  and  red  cheek  like 
a  ripe  fruit,  and  scarlet  sensitive  mouth,  all 
framed  in  a  setting  of  dark  auburn  hair. 

I  pause  to  smile  a  little  at  this  fervid  de 
scription,  but  you  will  understand  that  I  am 
trying  to  look  into  the  Boy's  heart  and  to  write 
what  I  find  there.  That  this  Fairy  Princess  of 
love  was  only  a  little  household  drudge,  kept 
from  school  and  slaving  all  day  for  her  large 
German  mother  married  the  second  time  to  a 
small  German  tailor,  who  had  by  this  said 
mother  a  younger  daughter  of  his  own,  for 
whom  he  evinced  an  unpleasing  preference, — 
these  things  may  hold  well  enough  together  in 
a  world  of  hard  facts,  but  the  Boy  saw  them 
through  the  lens  of  his  romantic  imagination. 
And  so  complete  was  the  illusion  that  after 


266          AN  ATTIC  DREAMER 

more  than  twenty-five  years  the  Man  cannot 
easily  shake  it  off. 

The  very  beginning  of  it  I  can't  remember — 
perhaps  we  never  do  recall  those  first  obscure 
intimations  of  a  passion.  I  have  a  delicious 
but  confused  memory  of  long  evening  walks 
with  her  and  the  little  sister — she,  as  I  recol 
lect  with  an  old  pang,  was  nearly  always  with 
us.  It  was  summer  and  the  place  was  an  old 
New  England  town  with  a  narrow  river 
spanned  by  quaint  bridges  flowing  through  the 
midst  of  it.  I  have  known  love  since, — ah  me ! 
— and  real  passion,  the  kind  that  consumes  a 
man's  life  as  flame  licks  up  oil;  but  never  again 
have  I  known  anything  to  compare  with  that 
young  dream. 

Crossing  one  of  these  bridges  on  a  certain 
evening  sacred  to  the  angels  of  Memory  and 
Joy,  the  little  sister  stopped  behind  not  more 
than  a  minute  to  tie  her  shoe;  and  we  had  our 
first  kiss!  (The  Man  trembles  at  the  remem 
brance.)  I  did  not  ask  for  it — I  feared  her, 
that  is,  loved  her  too  much;  and  she  knew  no 
more  of  coquetry  than  a  babe.  So  far  as  I  can 
be  sure,  the  impulse  was  at  once  mutual, 
natural  and  irresistible.  O  clinging  dewy 
mouth !  O  young  heart  fluttering  wildly 


THE  FIRST  LOVE  267 

against  mine ! — when  have  I  ever  drunk  at  so 
pure  a  fount  of  joy  1  .  .  . 

After  that  our  evening  walks  were  mostly 
made  up  of  kisses,  for  the  little  sister  (she 
was  nine)  had  to  be  let  into  the  secret,  and  as 
I  recall  with  some  surprise,  she  never  betrayed 
us.  This  was  the  more  to  her  credit,  seeing 
that  she  was  only  a  half-sister  and  the  favorite 
child.  But  not.  even  a  little  girl  of  nine  can 
bear  to  see  another  getting  all  the  kisses,  and  so 
she  would  be  vexed  sometimes  and  cry  pet 
tishly,  uOh  kiss,  kiss ! — why  don't  you  get 
married?"  Then  I  would  appease  her  with 
candy  or  a  promise  of  something  nice, — and 
we  would  enjoy  our  subsequent  kisses  all  the 
more  for  the  little  interruption.  O  far  years, 
wafting  to  me  a  faint  scent  of  lilac!  O  youth 
that  is  no  more!  .  .  . 

This  lasted  a  whole  summer, — the  only  en 
tire  season,  the  Man  freely  admits,  that  he  ever 
passed  in  Paradise.  Could  he  now  go  back 
through  the  crowding  years,  I  am  very  sure 
that  he  would  make  a  bee-line  for  that  old  New 
England  town,  and  with  a  heart  thumping  in 
his  throat,  look  for  a  beloved  little  figure  on 
one  of  the  quaint  bridges  in  the  summer 
gloaming. 


268  AN  ATTIC  DREAMER 

Here  the  Boy  tugs  at  my  sleeve  and  asks  me 
not  to  tell  the  prosaic  occasion  of  those  twi 
light  walks  with  Mamie  and  little  sister;  the 
same  being  that  the  little  tailor  sent  them  every 
night  but  Sunday  (ah,  those  heart-hungry  Sun 
day  nights!)  for  a  pint  of  beer,  and  often 
chided  them  for  bringing  it  home  flat.  He,  the 
Boy,  is  quite  sullen  when  I  try  to  make  him 
understand  that  this  homely  detail  but  adds  to 
the  pathos  of  his  romance.  Stubborn  Boy  in 
deed  .  .  .  and  the  Man  not  so  much  better! 

I  had  to  leave  the  little  town  at  the  end  of 
that  summer  of  love,  and  so  suddenly  that 
there  was  no  chance  to  bid  her  good-bye.  Once 
again,  and  only  once,  I  saw  her  afterward, 
when  about  two  years  later  I  visited  the  place. 
On  our  dear  bridge,  too,  and  with  little  sister 
grown  formidably  larger  and  more  knowing. 
She  came  defiantly  between  us  at  once,  and  I 
saw  with  a  sinking  heart  that  we  dared  not  re 
new  the  old  love-making.  Mamie  was  taller, 
paler  and,  as  I  thought, — I  mean  the  Boy, — 
lovely  as  an  angel.  I  scarcely  remember  a  word 
that  she  said  to  me — the  constraint  of  the  sis 
ter's  presence  checked  us  both.  I  think  she  was 
chilled  too  by  the  fact  that  my  visit  was  to 
be  only  for  a  few  days;  and  she  doubtless  real- 


THE  FIRST  LOVE  269 

ized  the  truth,  that  I  was  passing  out  of  her 
life.  Never  have  I  been  more  wretched  than 
during  that  last  walk  with  Mamie. 

On  leaving  her  I  mustered  up  my  courage 
and  ignoring  little  sister,  whose  eyes  were 
bright  with  malice,  offered  to  kiss  her.  She 
turned  her  cheek  toward  me,  saying  calmly: 
"I  am  going  to  be  confirmed  on  Sunday". 

That  cold  kiss  is  my  last  memory  of  Mamie, 
of  the  warm  loving  child-woman  whose  mere 
name,  seen  or  heard,  causes  my  heart  to  thrill 
as  when  a  boy.  I  never  saw  her  again.  .  .  . 

Where  is  she  now?  God  knows:  yet  in  no 
worse  place,  I  trust,  than  that  consoling  heaven 
of  our  dreams  where  the  precious  things  of 
the  heart  that  we  have  lost  in  our  journey 
through  life  are  restored  to  us;  and  most  dear 
and  precious  of  all,  our  first  love. 


XXIII 

SEEING  THE    OLD   TOWN 

I'VE  been  back  seeing  the  old  town.     The 
old  town  where  I  served  the  first  years  of 
my  hard  apprenticeship  to  life — alas!  not 
yet  completed.    The  old  town  where,  as  a  boy, 
I  dreamed  those  bright  early  dreams  whose 
fading  into  gray  futility  makes  the  dull  burden 
of  every  man's  regret. 

It  may  be  that  my  dreams  were  more  varied 
and  fantastic  than  those  of  the  average 
younker,  for  I  was  the  fool  o'  fancy,  with  a 
poet's  wild  heart  in  my  breast.  God  knows 
what  I  promised  myself  in  that  long-vanished 
time  of  youth  which  yet  was  instantly  vivified 
and  present  to  me  as  I  trod  the  streets  of  the 
old  town.  I  felt  like  one  about  to  see  a  ghost 
— the  ghost  of  my  young  self;  and  I  shrank 
consciously  from  meeting  it,  with  this  bitter 
sweet  pang  of  disillusion  at  my  heart.  I  could 
not  more  sensibly  have  feared  a  living  presence. 

Alas,  what  one  of  us  all  is  worthy,  after  the 
270 


SEEING  THE  OLD  TOWN       271 

heavy  account  of  years,  to  confront  the  ghost 
of  his  candid  youth? — what  one  but  must  bow 
the  head  before  that  pitying  yet  reproachful 
Memory? 

This  feeling  took  such  strong  hold  upon 
me  that  soon  I  hastened  away  from  the  too  fa 
miliar  squares  and  corners,  so  poignantly  rem 
iniscent  of  that  other  Me,  and  went  to  the 
hotel  facing  Main  Street.  But  even  here, 
seated  at  a  window  and  elbowed  by  a  group  of 
story-swapping  drummers,  I  could  not  free  my 
self  from  the  spell  of  old  memories.  Youth 
with  its  hundred  voices  cried  to  me;  the  past 
and  the  present  became  at  once  strangely  con 
fused,  yet  separable;  and  I  was  set  to  thev pain 
ful  task  of  tracing  and  identifying  my  younger 
self  in  the  crowd  of  passers-by. 

And  I  did  find  that  boy  again — oh  yes!  I 
did  find  him  in  spite  of  the  lapse  of  many 
changing  years  and  all  that  Time  had  wrought 
within  and  without  me  since  he  and  I  were  one. 
I  found  him,  though  he  was  long  shy  and  hesi 
tated  to  come  out  of  the  shadows;  holding  back 
timidly  and  looking  on  me  with  tender  yet 
doubtful  eyes — ah  God !  I  knew  whence  the 
doubt.  But  at  last  he  came  fully,  careless  of 
the  roaring  drummers  or  knowing  himself  to 


272          AN  ATTIC  DREAMER 

be  unseen;  and  I  held  his  hand  in  mine,  while 
a  sweet  sorrow  beat  against  my  heart  in  the 
thought  of  what  might  have  been  and  now 
could  never  be.  And  after  the  kind  relief  of 
tears,  we  talked  in  whispers  a  long  time  there 
by  the  window,  no  one  noticing  us;  and  ere  he 
went  back  into  the  shadow  he  touched  my  fore 
head  lightly  with  his  lips,  leaving  me  as  one 
whom  God  has  assoiled.  .  .  . 

The  old  town  was  but  little  changed,  only  it 
seemed  smaller,  like  all  places  we  have  known 
in  our  youth  and  been  long  absent  from.  The 
Main  street,  where  the  working  boys  and  girls 
flirt  and  promenade  in  an  endless  chain,  still 
slouched  the  whole  length  of  the  town,  with  the 
railroad  between  it  and  the  river;  no  difference, 
except  that  it  was  better  paved  than  in  my  time, 
and  the  clanging  trolleys  ran  instead  of  the 
ancient  bob-tailed  horse  cars.  There  were  a 
few  new  shops  or  strange  names  over  the  old 
ones — no  other  changes  of  consequence.  The 
same  old  town ! — the  boy  of  twenty  years  ago 
would  not  have  been  phased  in  the  least. 

But  I  was,  and  the  fact  was  due  to  the 
changes  which  Time  had  written  upon  so  many 
faces  I  had  known;  fair  young  girls  turned  into 
full-blown  matrons,  vaunting  their  offspring 


SEEING  THE  OLD  TOWN       273 

with  no  lack  of  words,  or  withered  old  maids 
looking  askance  and  shrinking  from  recogni 
tion;  striplings  who  had  shot  up  into  solid  man 
hood,  and  whom  you  were  puzzled  to  place; 
broken  old  men  whom  you  recalled  in  their 
vigorous  prime;  all  the  varied  human  derelicts 
of  the  storm  and  stress  of  twenty  years.  Oh,  it 
makes  a  man  bethink  himself  to  watch  the  pro 
cession  go  by  in  the  old  town. 

Certainly,  if  you  wish  to  get  a  true  line  on 
yourself,  go  back  to  the  old  town.  Nothing 
else  will  do  the  trick.  Your  glass  is  a  liar 
leagued  with  your  vanity.  Your  wife  a  loving 
flatterer  who  says  the  thing  that  is  not.  Your 
children  will  never  tell  you  how  old  you  are 
beginning  to  look.  Your  daily  intimates  and 
coevals  are  concerned  to  keep  up  the  same  illu 
sion  for  themselves.  You  deceive  yourself, 
know  it,  and  are  happy  in  the  deception.  There 
is  only  one  way  for  you  to  learn  the  "bitter, 
wholesome  truth",  or,  in  other  words,  to  get  a 
fair  look  at  the  clock — go  back  to  the  old 
town! 

There  is  some  humor,  too,  in  going  back,  as 
I  find  from  my  visits  at  an  interval  of  five  or 
six  years.  Always  I  am  most  heartily  and 
noisily  greeted  by  men  who  have  no  use  for  me 


274          AN  ATTIC  DREAMER 

except  to  "knock"  me,  whom  the  sight  or  sound 
of  my  name  exasperates,  to  whom  my  tiny  bit 
of  success  is  poison,  and  who  struggle  on 
bravely  with  the  hope  of  seeing  me  finally  land 
where  I  deserve  to  be  and  am,  as  they  fervently 
believe,  irretrievably  headed.  We  do  each 
other  good,  for  if  I  were  to  die,  these  men 
would  lose  one  of  the  sweetest  motives  of  their 
existence ;  and  I,  knowing  this,  am  eager  to  live 
on  and  disappoint  them. 

Last  time  I  went  back  I  saw  one  of  these 
friendly  fellows  at  a  distance  of  a  block,  and 
he  kept  his  glad  hand  out  at  the  risk  of  paraly 
sis,  until  we  came  together.  Then  how  he 
laughed  with  pleasure,  and  my  goodness,  what 
a  grip  he  gave  me!  I  had  to  laugh  with  him 
and  return  his  grip,  so  far  as  my  feeble  strength 
would  allow.  In  an  acquaintance  of  over 
twenty  years  this  fellow  had  never  offered  me 
the  slightest  proof  of  his  friendship,  save,  as 
I  have  said,  to  "knock"  me;  and  now  a  dear 
friend  of  mine  hung  modestly  back  while  he 
crushed  me  in  his  iron  embrace.  When  I  was 
going  away  at  the  end  of  my  visit,  this  terrible 
enemy  came  to  the  nine  o'clock  train  to  see  me 
off  and  spoiled  the  leave-taking  of  my  real 
friends.  There  is  irony  of  the  same  brand 


SEEING  THE  OLD  TOWN       275 

elsewhere,  but  you  will  not  see  it  to  such  naked 
advantage  as  in  the  old  town.  .  .  . 

The  saddest  experience  one  can  have  in  re 
visiting  the  old  town  is  to  hear  suddenly  of  the 
death  of  some  friend  of  one's  youth,  who 
though  separated  from  one  by  long  years  of 
absence,  must  ever  share  in  the  romance  of  that 
enchanted  period.  I  was  so  to  learn  of  the  loss 
of  a  friend  who  had  been  very  dear  to  me  in  the 
old  days.  Together  we  had  trudged  the  Main 
Street  of  the  old  town,  by  night  and  by  day, 
making  plans  for  the  future,  few  of  which  were 
realized  either  for  him  or  for  me. 

The  friendships  of  youth  are  sacred.  Ma 
ture  life  has  nothing  to  offer  in  their  place. 
Men  agree  to  like  each  other  for  social  or  busi 
ness  reasons;  often,  paradoxically,  because  they 
fear  each  other.  The  heart  is  not  touched  in 
this  hollow  alliance — it  is  a  pact  of  interest  and 
selfishness.  Youth  and  trust,  age  and  cynicism 
— thus  are  they  paired. 

I  know  well  that  one  or  two  young  friend 
ships  or  frank  elections  of  the  heart  have 
yielded  me  much  of  the  pain  and  thrill  and 
rapture  of  that  sentiment  between  the  sexes 
which  we  call  love.  I  know  that  I  was  several 
years  older  ere  the  voice  of  a  girl  had  leave  to 


276          AN  ATTIC  DREAMER 

thrill  me  like  the  tone  of  this  dear  lost  friend; 
that  I  suffered  as  keenly  during  an  occasional 
boyish  miff  with  him  as  in  my  first  genuine  love 
quarrels;  that  I  would  have  risked  life  and  limb 
to  please  him,  and  could  conceive  of  nothing 
sweeter  than  his  praise;  that  I  can  not  think 
of  him  even  now  without  a  pain  at  the  heart 
which  I  have  not  the  skill  to  analyze.  And 
though  I  saw  little  of  him  for  many  years,  and 
there  was  no  attempt  to  follow  up  our  ancient 
friendship — our  paths  lying  wide  apart  in  every 
sense — and  though  he  died  a  man  of  middle 
age,  I  can  but  think  of  him — taking  no  note  at 
all  of  the  years  that  lie  between — as  a  bright- 
haired,  laughing  youth;  and  so  mourn  him  with 
a  sorrow  of  the  heart  which  proves  a  silent 
witness  there  during  all  the  years  to  the  truth 
of  our  early  affection. 

There  is  something  divine,  though  we  but 
dimly  glimpse  it,  in  the  unavowed,  almost  un 
conscious  persistence  of  these  sacred  ties  of  our 
youth,  these  precious  legacies  from  the  days 
that  are  no  more,  whose  light  shines  with  a 
white  lustre  that  belongs  to  them  alone. 

Sleep  well,  my  friend!   .  .   . 

I  was  not  sorry  to  have  seen  the  old  town 
again,  though  it  gave  me  but  a  sad  pleasure  at 


SEEING  THE  OLD  TOWN       277 

best,  and  I  was  glad  when  my  short  leave  was 
up.  And  yet  that  singular  thrill  of  walking 
where  once  you  knew  and  were  known  of  every 
body,  and  where  still,  because  of  some  slight 
rumors  from  the  great  outlying  world,  a  flatter 
ing  village  curiosity  attends  you,  is  worth  going 
a  long  journey  to  feel. 

To  say  nothing  of  your  joyous  enemy  who 
hails  you  with  stentorian  shout  and  glad  hand 
extended,  on  your  arrival,  and  likewise  dis 
misses  you  on  your  departure  with  curses  not 
loud  but  deep.  And  the  many  things  you  see 
and  hear  and  feel  which,  without  compliment, 
certify  you  to  yourself  as  you  really  are ! 


XXIV 

PULVIS   ET    UMBRA 

NO  sadder  message  comes  to  a  writer  in 
the  course  of  a  year  than  the  news  of 
some  friendly  though  unknown  read 
er's  death.  Often  you  learn  it  only  through 
the  return  of  the  magazine,  with  the  single 
word  "Deceased"  written  across  the  wrapper. 
It  is  a  word  to  give  one  pause,  however  en 
grossing  the  present  occupation.  Here  was  a 
man  or  woman  who,  though  personally  un 
known  to  you,  was  yet,  it  may  be,  in  spiritual 
touch  with  you — perhaps  the  best  friendship 
of  all.  For  him  or  her  you  wrote  your 
thoughts — since  all  writing  is  to  an  unseen  but 
not  unfamiliar  audience;  for  him  or  her  you 
told  the  story  of  your  own  mind  and  heart,  sure 
of  a  kindly  understanding  and  sympathy — with 
out  this  assurance,  believe  me,  there  would  be 
little  enough  writing  in  the  world.  Every 
writer's  message  is  conditioned — I  would  al 
most  say  dictated — by  this  invisible  but  closely 
judging  auditory.  You  get  to  know  what  your 
278 


PULVIS  ET  UMBRA  279 

readers  expect,  and  this  in  the  main  you  try  to 
give  them,  though  often  failing  the  mark.  So 
the  act  of  writing  is  a  kind  of  tacit  covenant 
and  cooperation  between  the  writer  and  his 
public.  Indeed,  it  is  not  I  but  you  who  hold 
the  pen;  or  rather  it  is  I  who  hold  it  but  you 
who  speak  through  it  and  through  me. 

This  relation  being  understood,  it  is  but 
natural  that  a  writer  should  feel  a  sense  of 
grief  and  loss  on  hearing  of  the  death  of  some 
one  who  held  him  to  this  communion  of 
thought  and  spirit.  I  am  not  sure  that  this 
grief  would  be  more  genuine  had  he  personally 
known  the  lost  one — our  finest  friendships,  like 
the  old  classic  divinities,  veil  themselves  in  a 
cloud.  We  wear  ourselves  out  trying  to  main 
tain  the  common  friendships  of  the  house  and 
street,  and  it  is  like  matching  faces  with  Pro 
teus:  in  the  end  we  become  indifferent — or 
wise. 

But  here  was  one  whom  you  never  saw — who 
lived  half  the  length  of  the  continent  from  you, 
or  perhaps  in  the  next  town — no  matter,  you 
two  had  never  met  in  the  body.  Your  word 
did,  however,  come  to  him  and  called  forth  a 
genial  response;  he  let  you  know  that  so  far  as 
you  went  he  set  foot  with  you.  Thencefor- 


280          AN  ATTIC  DREAMER 

ward,  you  marched  the  more  boldly,  getting 
grace  and  courage  and  authority  from  this 
one's  silent  friendship  and  approval.  You  fig 
ured  him  as  one  who  stood  afar  off — too  far 
for  you  to  see  his  face — and  waved  you  a 
cheery  salute;  your  soul  hailed  a  fellow  pil 
grim.  Now  comes  the  word  that  he  can  go  no 
further  with  you — rather,  indeed,  that  he  has 
outstripped  your  laggard  pace  and  gone  for 
ward  on  the  great  Journey.  You  learn  of  his 
departure  in  the  chance  way  I  have  mentioned 
— not  being  a  friend  in  the  conventional  sense, 
the  family  do  not  think  to  send  you  any  mes 
sage  or  mourning  card.  You  have  but  to  feel 
that  you  are  poorer  by  a  friendship  of  the  soul 
than  you  were  yesterday;  that  you  are  going 
on,  in  a  sense,  alone  and  unsupported,  for  this 
friend  was  a  host;  that  you  are  not  to  look  ever 
again  for  his  written  word  of  praise,  which 
brought  such  gladness  to  your  heart,  or  his  deli 
cate  counsel  that  often  helped  you  to  a  clearer 
vision  of  things.  The  silent  compact  is  dis 
solved.  .  .  . 

Life  is  a  blessing,  and  death  is  no  less. 
That  which  we  call  the  common  lot  is  the 
rarest  lot.    Love  and  loss  and  grief  are  for  all. 


PULVIS  ET  UMBRA  281 

Of  two  men,  one  who  loves  and  one  who  has 
loved  and  lost,  the  second  is  the  richer:  God 
has  given  him  the  better  part — he  holds  both 
of  earth  and  Heaven. 

The  love  that  has  known  no  loss  is  wholly 
selfish  and  human.  Death  alone  sanctifies. 

Who  has  not  lain  down  at  night  saying  unto 
himself,  "Now  is  the  solemn  hour  when  my 
own  shall  come  back  to  me", — has  not  sounded 
the  shoreless  sea  of  love. 

I  believe  in  life  and  I  believe  not  less  pro 
foundly  in  death. 

I  believe  in  a  resurrection  and  a  restoration 
— we  can  not  lose  our  own. 

No  man  has  ever  yet  found  tongue  to  tell 
the  things  that  death  has  taught  him.  No  man 
dare  reveal  them  fully — 'tis  a  covenant  with 
Silence. 

A  power  that  strikes  us  to  our  knees  with 
infinite  sorrow  and  a  yearning  that  would 
reach  beyond  the  grave,  must  be  a  Power 
Benign. 

Life  divides  and  estranges:  Death  reunites 
and  reconciles:  Blessed  be  Death! 

"Your  friend  is  dead!"  they  told  me,  but  I 
did  not  believe  nor  understand. 


282          AN  ATTIC  DREAMER 

Then  they  led  me  to  a  darkened  room, 
hushed  and  solemn  amid  the  roar  of  New 
York,  where  I  saw  him  lying  in  a  strange  yet 
beautiful  serenity. 

No  disfigurement  of  his  manly  comeliness; 
no  trace  of  a  struggle  that  had  convulsed  the 
watchers  with  pain  only  less  than  his. 

Roses  on  his  manly  breast — roses  rich  and 
lush  as  the  young  life  that  had  sunk  into  a  sleep 
so  sudden,  so  unlocked  for. 

Nothing  to  shock,  nothing  to  appal  in  this 
wordless  greeting  to  the  friends  of  his  heart. 
As  ever  in  life,  his  personality  took  and  held 
us  in  its  strong  toil  of  grace — yes,  more  than 
ever  held  us  now  closely  his  own. 

Could  this  indeed  be  death? 

Ah,  many  a  time  had  I  hastened  with  joyous 
anticipation  to  meet  him,  but  never  had  we  kept 
a  tryst  like  this. 

I  clasped  that  hand  whose  touch  so  often 
had  thrilled  me  with  its  kindness — oh,  hand  so 
strong  and  gentle  of  my  best-loved  friend! 
It  was  not  cold  as  I  feared  it  would  be,  and 
surely  a  pulse  answered  to  mine — he  knew,  oh, 
yes !  he  knew  that  I  was  there. 

I  kissed  his  calm  forehead  and  felt  no  chill 
of  death — no  terror  at  the  heart.  He  seemed 


PULVIS  ET  UMBRA  283 

but  to  lie  in  a  breathless  sleep  that  yet  held  a 
profound  consciousness  of  our  presence. 

Still,  they  said  he  was  dead, — he  so  tranquil, 
almost  smiling  and  inscrutably  attentive  ! — and 
the  grief  of  women  challenged  my  own  tears  to 
flow. 

Yet,  with  my  emotions  tense  as  a  bow  drawn 
to  the  head,  I  could  not  weep;  so  was  I  held  by 
this  wonder  and  majesty  they  called  death. 
And  it  seemed  that  he  did  not  ask  my  tears  in 
the  ineffable  peace  of  our  last  meeting, — no, 
not  my  tears.  But  there  was  a  gathering  up  of 
the  heart  which  I  had  never  known  before,  a 
bringing  together  by  Memory,  the  faithful 
warder,  of  all  that  had  made  or  ministered  to 
our  friendship, — kind  looks  and  tones,  trifles 
light  as  air  mingled  with  graver  matters,  a 
country  walk,  a  sea  voyage,  books  that  we  had 
read  together,  snatches  of  talk,  mutual  pleas 
ures,  mutual  interests,  a  hundred  proofs  of 
brotherly  affection  and  sympathy, — so  Memory 
ran  searching  the  years  till  the  sum  of  my  love 
and  my  loss  lay  before  me. 

Did  he  know? — did  he  feel?  Scarcely  I 
dared  to  ask  myself  when  the  Silence  breathed 
Yes!  .  .  . 

Here  at  my  elbow  is  the  telephone  into  which 


284          AN  ATTIC  DREAMER 

I  could  summon  his  pleasant  voice  at  will.  It 
was  but  now  we  were  talking  and  making  happy 
plans  together — I  had  no  plans  without  him. 

Then  there  was  a  blank,  and  a  strange  voice, 
vibrant  with  pain,  called  me  up  and  said.  .  .  . 

Oh,  God! — it  can  not  be  true!  He  a  giant 
in  his  youth  and  strength;  he  with  his  vast  en 
joyment  of  life,  every  nerve  and  muscle  of  him 
trained  to  the  fullest  energy;  he  struck  down, 
without  a  note  of  warning,  in  the  vigor  of  his 
triumphant  manhood,  while  the  old,  the  sickly 
and  the  imperfect  live  on? — No,  no — this  were 
not  death,  but  sacrifice. 

Why,  it  was  but  yesterday  I  felt  the  vital 
grasp  of  his  hand;  listened  to  his  brave  talk,  so 
genial  a  reflex  of  his  mind  and  spirit;  basked 
in  the  brightness  of  his  frank  smile, — debtor 
as  ever  I  was  to  his  flowing  kindness;  drank 
the  cordial  of  his  living  presence,  and  took  no 
thought  of  fate. 

And  now  they  tell  me  he  is  dead — that  from 
our  account  of  life,  this  long  sum  of  days  and 
hours  so  dreary  without  him,  he  is  gone  for 
ever  !  Over  and  over  must  I  say  this,  or  hear 
the  dull  refrain  from  others;  yet  the  truth  will 
not  press  home. 

For,  in  spite  of  the  dread  certainty,  I  am  not 


PULVIS  ET  UMBRA  285 

always  without  hope  of  seeing  him  again  in  the 
pleasant  ways  of  life  where  often  we  met  to 
gether;  where  never  we  parted  but  with  a  joy 
ous  promise  soon  to  meet  again. 

This  hope  would  be  stronger,  I  now  feel,  had 
I  not  looked  upon  him  in  that  strange  peaceful- 
ness  that  was  yet  so  compelling;  and  sometimes 
I  wish  they  had  not  led  me  there. 

So  hard  is  it  to  break  with  the  dear  habit  of 
life — so  reluctant  the  heart  to  believe  that  the 
silver  cord  has  been  loosed  which  bound  it  to 
another. 

Oh,  my  lost  friend !   .  .   . 

The  watchers  told  me  that  they  had  never 
seen  so  brave  a  struggle  for  life.  Time  and 
again  he  grappled  with  the  Destroyer,  like  the 
strong  athlete  he  was — yes,  and  often  it  seemed 
that  his  dauntless  heart  would  prevail.  But 
alas!  the  fates  willed  otherwise. 

Then  at  last,  when  hope  was  gone,  as  he 
read  in  the  tearful  eyes  of  those  about  him,  he 
threw  up  his  right  hand  with  a  lamentable  ges 
ture,  saying,— "That's  all!" 

Not  all,  brave  and  true  heart,  for  love  can 
not  lose  its  own,  and  thy  defeat  was  still  a  vic 
tory.  Thou  livest  now  more  than  ever  in  the 
memory  of  those  who  gave  thee  love  for  love, 


286  AN  ATTIC  DREAMER 

yet  ever  lacked  of  thy  abounding  measure;  to 
them  shalt  thou  ever  appear  as  when  thou  didst 
fall  asleep  in  the  glory  of  thy  youth  and 
strength;  age  can  not  lay  its  cold  hand  upon 
thee,  and  thy  beloved,  dying  old  mayhap,  shall 
again  find  thee  young. 

In  that  sweet  hope,  dear  Friend  of  my  heart, 
and  until  then — farewell,  farewell ! 


XXV 

SHADOWS 

WE  are  shadows  all  and  shadows  we 
pursue.     This  business  of  life  which 
we  make-believe  to  take  so  earnestly, 
— what  is  it  but  a  moth-chase  or  the  play  of 
grotesques  in  a  child's  magic  lantern?    A  sud 
den  helter-skelter  of  light  and  shade,  a  comic 
jumble  of  figures  thrown  for  a  moment  on  the 
screen,  and  then, — darkness! 

Children  of  the  shadow,  to  that  Shadow  we 
return  at  last;  but  the  very  essence  of  our  life 
is  fluid,  evanishing  always.  The  minute,  the 
day,  the  hour,  the  year, — who  can  lay  hands  on 
them? — and  yet  in  our  humorous  fashion  we 
speak  of  these  as  fixed  and  stable  things,  sub 
ject  to  our  control.  Meantime  and  all  time, 
dream  delivers  us  unto  dream,  while  life  lends 
to  its  most  tangible  aspects  something  shadowy 
and  spectral,  as  the  vapors  clothe  the  horizon 
with  mystery.  The  things  we  call  realities,  in 
our  vain  phrase,  that  enter  most  deeply  into  the 
287 


288  AN  ATTIC  DREAMER 

warp  of  our  lives,  these  are  also  dream-stuff, 
kindred  of  the  Shadow.  Our  consciousness, 
from  which  we  dare  to  apprehend  immortality, 
can  only  look  backward  into  the  realm  of 
dream  and  shadow,  or  forward  into  the  realm 
of  shadow  and  dream.  I  am  at  this  moment 
more  stricken  at  the  heart  with  the  sorrow  of 
a  song  that  my  mother  crooned  to  me,  a  child, 
in  the  firelight  many  years  ago,  than  with  all 
the  griefs  I  have  since  known.  Shadows,  all 
shadows !  With  my  house  full  of  romping, 
laughing  children,  there  falls  now  upon  my 
heart  the  tiny  shadow  of  a  lost  babe — and  I 
beat  helpless  hands  against  the  iron  mystery 
of  death.  .  .  . 

But  the  living,  too,  are  shadows,  not  less 
pitiable  than  they  whom  death  has  taken  from 
our  sight.  Nay,  it  is  more  sad  to  be  the  shadow 
of  a  shadow  than  to  clasp  the  final  darkness. 

Tell  me,  O  dear  love,  where  now  is  the  face 
that  once  showed  me  all  the  heaven  I  cared  to 
know,  the  form  that  made  the  rapture  of  my 
youth,  the  spell  which  filled  my  breast  with  de 
licious  pain,  the  lips  whose  touch  so  coy,  so 
rarely  gained,  was  honey  and  myrrh  and  wine  ? 
Oh,  say  not  that  she,  too,  is  of  the  Shadow! — 

Nay,  she  is  here  at  thy  side  and  has  never 


SHADOWS  289 

left  thee,  but  is  in  all  things  the  same — look 
again !  Alas !  this  is  not  the  face  that  charmed 
my  youth,  this  is  not  the  form  that  filled  my 
dreams — and  her  eyes  were  clear  as  the  well- 
springs  of  Paradise.  But  oh,  for  pity  of  it,  let 
not  my  poor  love  know  that  her  dear  enrap 
turing  self,  with  our  precious  dream  in  which 
we  drew  down  heaven  to  earth,  is  gone  forever 
into  the  Shadow. 

We  are  shadows  all,  living  ghosts,  so  slight 
of  memory  and  consciousness  that  we  seem  to 
die  many  deaths  ere  the  final  one.  This  illu 
sion  we  name  life  is  intermittent — hardly  can 
we  recall  what  happened  day  before  yesterday. 
Even  the  great  events  of  life  (as  we  phrase 
them)  do  but  feebly  stamp  our  weak  conscious 
ness.  By  a  fiction  which  everyone  knows  to 
be  false,  we  make  a  pretence  of  feeling  much 
and  deeply.  'Tis  a  handsome  compliment  to 
our  common  nature,  but  the  truth  is  we  rarely 
feel — our  substance  is  too  thin  and  ghost-like. 

As  shadows  we  fly  by  each  other  and  are 
never  really  in  contact.  This  is  the  profound  de 
ception  of  love,  the  pathos  of  the  human  trag 
edy.  The  forms  we  would  clasp  make  them 
selves  thin  air;  we  strain  at  a  vacuum  and  a 
shade — aye,  in  the  most  sacred  embraces  of  love 


290          AN  ATTIC  DREAMER 

we  hold — nothing  I  Less  hard  is  it  to  scale  the 
walls  of  heaven  than  to  compass  our  desire. 
But  now  at  last  we  are  to  be  satisfied,  to  have 
our  fill  of  this  dear  presence  which  spells  for 
us  the  yearning  and  mystery  of  love: — alas!  in 
the  very  rapture  of  possession  we  feel  the  eter 
nal  cheat. 

Yet  while  we  lament  ever  that  we  can  not  lay 
hands  on  those  we  love,  shadows  that  we  are, 
no  more  sure  are  we  of  ourselves.  This 
shadow  of  me  eludes  even  myself  as  I  am 
eluded  by  the  shadows  of  others  in  the  great 
phantasmal  show  around  me.  I  know  this 
shadow  of  me,  volatile,  uncertain,  ever  escap 
ing  from  under  the  hand,  and  if  I  were  not  so 
busy  chasing  my  own  shadow — the  evanescent 
Me — I  should  have  more  leisure  for  hunting 
other  moths  and  shadows.  The  old  Greeks 
figured  this  change  and  fugacity  in  the  mythic 
Proteus ;  but  they  missed  the  deeper  sense  of  it. 

There  was  a  shadow  of  me  last  year  that  I 
had  some  cause  of  quarrel  with  and  we  parted 
unkindly.  Where  is  it? — gone  forever.  Wiser 
now,  I  would  gladly  make  peace  with  that 
shadow — it  meant  honestly,  I  must  confess, 
though  often  it  sinned  and  blundered — but 
never  more  will  it  walk  the  earth.  Other 


SHADOWS  291 

shadows  of  me  have  likewise  escaped,  leaving 
similar  accounts  unsettled  (they  never  do  put 
their  affairs  in  order) — not  to  be  settled  now, 
I  dare  say,  until  the  Great  Audit. 

I  would  not  care  to  recall  all  those  shadows 
of  myself,  even  had  I  the  power,  as  I  would 
not  wish  to  live  my  life  over  again  without 
leave  to  change  it  (he  is  a  fool  or  a  liar  who 
says  otherwise).  But  I  may  confess  a  weakness 
for  One  that  vanished  long  ago,  leaving  me  too 
soon:  a  shadow  of  youthful  hope  and  high  pur 
pose  that  could  do  much  to  refresh  this  jaded 
heart,  dared  I  but  look  upon  it.  Oh,  kind 
Master  of  the  Show,  grant  me  once  more  to 
see  that  shadow  on  the  screen!  Unworthy  as 
I  am,  let  me  look  on  it  again  and  strive  to 
gather  new  hope  from  its  imperishable  store. 
I  know  it  dreamed  of  a  holier  love  than  I  have 
realized;  of  nobler  aims  than  I  have  had 
strength  to  reach;  of  crowns  and  triumphs  that 
I  shall  never  claim.  It  believed  only  in  good 
(God  knows ! )  and  since  it  left  me,  without  any 
cause  that  I  can  remember,  I  have  known  much 
evil.  Yet  it  is  still  the  essential  Me,  soul  of 
my  soul,  and  so  must  it  be  through  the  eterni 
ties.  I  can  not  be  separated  from  that  Bright 
ness,  that  Innocency,  that  Hopefulness  which 


292          AN  ATTIC  DREAMER 

once  I  was — call  it  back  for  but  an  instant  to 
give  peace  to  my  soul ! 

Vain  appeal! — A  shadow  calling  unto   the 
Shadow. 


XXVI 

THE    GREAT    REDEMPTION 

I  WAS  born  in  fear,  but  that  was  not  the 
beginning,  for  in  fear  my  mother  had  con 
ceived  me,  and  during  the  period  before  my 
birth,  often  I  felt  her  heart  tremble  with  fear. 
But  even  that  was  not  the  beginning — oh,  far 
from  it.  I  feel  within  me  the  fear  of  remote 
generations,  dim,  shadowy,  formless,  vague; 
yet  having  the  power  to  dominate  and  oppress 
me.  Fearful  inheritance,  to  have  to  struggle 
with  terrors  bequeathed  by  the  dead!  In 
dreams  especially  they  assert  their  terrible 
sway  over  me,  filling  my  brain  with  a  phan 
tasmagoria  of  horror,  robbing  my  nights  of 
peaceful  rest,  so  that  often  the  morning  finds 
me  weak,  shattered,  unrefreshed,  and  burdened 
with  a  nameless  fear. 

My  parents  worshipped  the  One  True  God, 

the  God  of  Fear,  and  as  a  child  I  was  always 

taken  to  church  in  order  that  my  mind  might 

receive  indelible  impressions  of  the  faith  which 

293 


294          AN  ATTIC  DREAMER 

held  them  in  terror.  There  was  beauty  in  the 
church,  in  the  many-hued  windows  with  majes 
tic  aureoled  figures,  in  the  sacred  statues  with 
gold  and  jewelled  crowns,  in  the  marble  altar 
with  its  hovering  cloud  of  angels,  and  especially 
in  the  slow  illumination  thereof,  candle  by 
candle,  until  it  became  a  solid  blaze  of  light. 
I  loved  to  see  the  young  acolytes  in  their 
gowns,  some  of  them  as  lovely  as  the  marble 
seraphim;  to  watch  the  silent,  marshalled 
order  with  which  they  attended  an  awe-inspir 
ing  figure  clothed  in  gorgeous  vestments;  to 
hear  at  intervals  their  shrill,  sweet  young 
voices,  rising  above  the  deep  note  of  the  organ 
and  responding  to  the  priest  in  words  which  I 
understood  not,  but  which  I  thought  must  be 
the  language  of  Heaven;  to  smell  the  strange 
sweet  odor  of  incense,  and  to  see  the  communi 
cants  in  white  dresses  leave  the  altar  with 
bowed  heads  and  clasped  hands,  looking  like  a 
company  of  the  Shining  Ones: — all  this  could 
not  but  mark  a  child's  mind  and  soul  with  an 
abiding  remembrance. 

Alas,  for  me  it  was  spoiled  by  the  terrible 
sermons  which  the  priest  so  often  preached  in 
those  days,  on  Hell  and  the  punishment  of  the 
Damned.  There  was  one  priest  with  a  strong, 


THE  GREAT  REDEMPTION     295 

rolling  voice  and  an  appearance  of  awful  sin 
cerity,  who  commonly  chose  this  theme  and 
whose  words  I  shall  never  forget.  How  con 
vincingly  he  simulated  the  anger  of  his  terrible 
God!  How  movingly  he  depicted  the  pains 
and  tortures  of  the  Infernal  Place  1  "Think, 
dear  children,"  he  would  cry  to  us,  "think  but  a 
moment  on  the  pains  of  Hell.  Mind  cannot 
conceive  it;  tongue  cannot  utter  it.  If  you 
touch  the  tip  of  your  finger  to  a  red-hot  coal 
for  but  an  instant,  less  than  a  second,  what  pain 
you  suffer!  Less  than  a  second,  mark  you! 
Then  think  of  this  agony  multiplied  a  thousand 
thousand  times,  and  continued  through  all 
eternity,  forever  and  ever!  The  pain  never 
to  be  assuaged,  and  the  punishment  never  to 


cease!' 


It  seemed  to  me,  as  I  heard  him,  that  Hell 
opened  before  my  eyes,  and  I  saw  the  very  hor 
rors  he  portrayed. 

This  priest  was  an  honest  man;  he  believed 
to  the  full  extent  what  he  told  us;  he  was  simply 
fulfilling  a  duty  to  his  God  of  Fear.  The  cost 
of  raising  such  awful  images  before  childish 
minds,  and  filling  childish  hearts  with  such  en 
during  terrors,  was  perhaps  never  considered 
by  him;  was  no  part  of  his  priestly  business.  I 


296  AN  ATTIC  DREAMER 

should  be  glad  to  argue  the  point  with  him, 
could  I  now  see  him  anywhere,  save  in  my 
dreams.  .  .  . 

But  fear  is  not  confined  to  what  we  call  Reli 
gion  or  to  the  worship  of  a  terrible  Something 
in  the  sky;  in  one  shape  or  another,  it  dogs  life 
at  every  turn.  No  man,  if  he  would  confess  the 
truth,  ever  lived  a  whole  hour  without  fear. 
In  order  to  maintain  fear  in  the  world,  the 
human  race  has  entered  into  a  universal  con 
spiracy  which  is  ironically  dubbed,  "Civiliza 


tion". 


Government,  taking  pattern  from  Religion, 
is  a  thing  of  fear,  with  a  soldier  at  the  base  and 
a  king  at  the  top !  Fear  props  every  throne, 
writes  every  statute,  and  gives  to  every  mum 
mified  injustice,  the  sanction  of  Law. 

The  world  awaits  its  true  Saviour — him  who 
shall  deliver  it  from  fear.  In  our  time,  we 
shall  not  see  him,  but  he  is  coming,  oh  yes, 
coming,  sure  as  hope  has  lived  along  with  fear 
during  a  myriad  years. 

Mankind  has  once  been  redeemed,  we  are 
taught,  but  alas!  the  fruits  of  that  redemption 
are  not  for  this  world.  Here  the  shadow  and 
the  oppression  of  fear  have  lifted  but  a  very 
little  for  some  races,  and  for  others,  not  at  all. 


THE  GREAT  REDEMPTION     297 

What  a  glorious  hope,  to  bequeath  to  our  chil 
dren  a  world  without  fear? 

It  is,  alas !  only  too  true  that  mankind,  in 
their  present  estate,  cannot  even  imagine  A 
UNIVERSE  WITHOUT  TERROR,  and,  strange  to 
say,  they  would  be  utterly  afraid  to  think  of  it. 
But  that  will  become  easy  for  them  on  the  day 
they  cast  away  their  worship  of  the  OLD  GOD 
OF  FEAR ! 


XXVII 

SURSUM   CORDA 

THERE  is  a  brief  Latin  saying  which 
holds  in  two  words,  the  best  philoso 
phy  of  the  human  race.  It  is,  Sursum 
corda — lift  up  your  hearts  ! 

Why  despair  of  this  world?  All  the  joy  you 
have  ever  known  has  been  here.  It  is  true 
there  may  be  better  beyond,  but  as  Thoreau 
said,  "One  world  at  a  time!" 

And  now  let  us  reason  a  little.  Are  you  sure 
you  have  given  the  world  a  fair  trial — or 
rather  have  you  let  it  give  you  a  fair  trial? 
Softly  now;  the  first  words  will  not  do  to  an 
swer  this  question — remember  it  is  not  I  who 
interrogate,  but  your  fate. 

Can  you  expect  anything  but  failure  when 
you  lie  down  and  accept  defeat  in  advance? 
Anything  but  sorrow  when  you  set  your  house 
for  mourning?  Anything  but  rejection  when 
you  carry  dismay  in  your  face,  telling  all  the 

world  of  your  hope  forlorn? 
298 


SURSUM  CORDA  299 

I  went  to  my  friend  asking  cheerily  and  con 
fidently  for  a  thing  that  seemed  hopeless: 
smiling  and  without  a  second  thought,  he  gave 
me  what  I  asked.  Again  I  went  to  my  friend 
asking  humbly  and  with  little  heart  of  grace 
for  a  thing  that  I  yet  knew  was  hopeful: 
frowning  he  denied  my  prayer.  With  what 
brow  thou  askest  shalt  thou  be  answered. 

Lift  up  your  hearts! 

A  word  in  your  ear:  Have  you  ever  had  a 
trouble  or  a  sorrow  that  would  for  a  moment 
weigh  Vith  the  sure  knowledge  that  you  were 
to  die  next  week,  next  month,  next  year?  Be 
honest  now !  .  .  . 

A  little  while  ago  I  was  very  ill,  and  it 
seemed  to  me  that  if  only  I  could  get  up  from 
my  bed,  nothing  ever  would  trouble  me  again. 
Well,  in  time  I  was  able  to  get  up,  and  then 
the  old  worries  came  sneaking  back,  one  after 
another.  Even  as  I  write,  they  are  grinning 
and  mowing  at  my  elbow,  telling  me  that  my 
work  is  futile.  I  know  I  am  happy  and  well 
now,  but  they  are  always  trying  to  persuade 
me  to  the  contrary.  I  know  that  my  hope  was 
never  so  reasoned  and  strong,  the  future  never 
so  gravely  alluring;  but  they  will  have  it  that 
I  am  an  utter  bankrupt  in  my  hopes  and  the 


300          AN  ATTIC  DREAMER 

way  onward  closed  to  me.  I  know  my  friends 
— my  real  friends — were  never  more  true  and 
fond  and  faithful  than  they  are  to-day — they 
whisper  darkly  of  broken  faith,  evil  suspicion, 
and  the  treason  of  the  soul. 

Out  upon  the  liars !  It  is  I  that  am  in  fault 
to  give  them  a  moment's  hearing.  The  broken 
faith,  the  treason,  the  distrust — if  any  such 
there  be — are  mine  alone;  for  in  my  own  breast 
were  these  serpents  hatched,  and  the  poison  I 
drink  is  of  my  own  brewing. 

Lift  up  your  hearts! 

Hast  thou  no  cause  to  be  happy? — look  well 
now.  Thou  wast  sick  and  thou  art  now  whole. 
Weary,  thou  didst  lay  down  a  beloved  task,  not 
hoping  ever  to  take  it  up  again;  yet  see !  it  is  in 
thy  hands.  Is  not  the  wife  of  thy  youth  ever 
with  thee,  still  fair  and  kind  and  blooming? 
Thou  dreamest  a  haggard  dream  of  poverty, 
while  thy  house  is  filled  with  the  divine  riches 
of  love  and  ringing  with  the  joyous  mirth  of 
thy  children.  The  musicians  of  hope  pipe  to 
thee  and  thou  wilt  not  dance;  victory  smiles 
on  thee  anear,  and  thou  wilt  think  only  of 
defeat.  Look ! — it  is  but  a  little  way  and  thou 
droopest  with  the  long  wished-for  haven  in 
sight.  .  .  . 


SURSUM  CORDA  301 

Lift  up  your  hearts! 

Yesterday  the  asolian  harp  was  silent  all  day 
in  the  window,  not  a  fugitive  air  wooing  it  to 
music.  To-day  it  is  wild  with  melody  from 
every  wind  of  the  world.  So  shall  the  brave 
music  of  thy  hopes  be  renewed. 

Have  no  care  of  the  silent,  barren  yester 
days — they  are  only  good  to  carry  away  all 
your  mistakes,  all  your  maimed  purposes,  all 
your  vain  brooding,  all  your  weak  irresolution, 
all  your  cowardice.  Concentrate  on  To-DAY 
and  your  soul  shall  be  strong  to  meet  To-mor 
row.  Hope,  Courage,  Energy — and  You! — 
against  whatever  odds.  .  .  . 

Lift  up  your  hearts! 


XXVIII 

HOPE 

HAST  ever  been  in  Hell,  dear  child  of 
God?  Hast  fallen  down — down — 
down  to  those  rayless  depths  where 
thou  couldst  no  longer  feel  the  supporting  hand 
of  God,  and  where  thou  didst  seem  to  taste  the 
agony  of  the  last  abandonment?  Hast  known 
that  ultimate  remorse  wherein  the  soul  ex 
ecutes  judgment  on  herself — true  image  it  may 
be  of  the  Last  Judgment — that  night  of  the 
spirit  whence  hope  and  blessedness  seem  to 
have  utterly  departed?  Hast  known  all  this, 
dear  child  of  God,  not  once  but  many  times? 
— nay,  livest  thou  in  a  constant  dread  expec 
tation  of  knowing  this  again  and  again,  so  long 
as  thy  soul  liveth?  Then,  be  of  good  hope,  for 
thou  art  indeed  a  Child  of  God  1 

There  may  be  many  ways  of  winning  Heaven, 

dear  heart,  but  this  is  of  the  surest — to  know 

and  feel  Hell  in  this  world.     And  the  more 

terribly  thou  comest  to  realize  in  thy  spirit  the 

302 


HOPE  303 

horror  and  desolation  of  Hell  even  in  this  mor 
tal  sojourn,  the  better  approved  is  thine  heir- 
ship  in  the  Kingdom.  For  when  thy  feet  take 
hold  on  Hell,  then  of  a  truth  thy  hope  is  high 
as  Heaven! 

This  too,  forget  not,  is  the  trial  and  test  of 
all  fine  souls — saints  of  God,  martyrs  of 
humanity,  the  great  mystics  and  dreamers,  the 
chosen  of  our  race,  whose  names  partake  of 
the  eternal  life  and  glory  of  the  stars. 
Wouldst  thou  be  of  a  better  company?  All 
these  great  victorious  souls  had  known  Hell 
to  its  uttermost  depths,  had  tasted  its  most 
bitter  anguish,  had  suffered  its  most  fearful 
agonies,  had  drunk  the  cup  of  its  awful  de 
spair,  and  had  cried  out  under  the  burthen  of 
doom,  like  Him  on  the  Cross,  that  their  God 
had  forsaken  them.  Yet  all  were  sons  of  God 
and  proved  their  title  by  conquering  Hell  in 
this  world. 

Even  as  they  fought  the  good  fight  and  pre 
vailed,  so  shalt  thou,  brave  heart.  Be  glad 
and  rejoice  that  thou  art  called  upon  to  endure 
the  same  great  trial,  as  being  worthy  of  their 
fellowship.  Thy  deep-dwelling  sorrows,  thine 
agonies  of  spirit, — nay,  thy  wrestling  with 
Powers  of  Darkness  and  all  the  supra-mortal 


3o4  AN  ATTIC  DREAMER 

venture  of  thy  soul  which  thou  deemest  laid 
upon  thee  as  a  curse, — do  but  seal  and  stamp 
thee  God's  darling.  For  none  can  reach  the 
heights  who  has  not  known  the  depths,  and 
though  the  Kingdom  of  Heaven  be  not  of  this 
world,  most  surely  is  the  Kingdom  of 
Hell.  .  .  . 

Courage,  dear  child  of  God! 


XXIX 

IDEAL 

YES,  dear,  do  you  go  on  sending  me  those 
sweet  messages  full  of  praise,  and 
hope,  and  inspiration,  holding  always 
before  me  the  Ideal,  keeping  me  to  the  plane 
of  my  better  self.  I  may  not  feel  that  I  de 
serve  a  tenth  part  of  your  faith  in  me — no 
matter,  some  day  I  shall  be  worthy  of  your 
praise.  And  even  though  I  should  never  reach 
the  summit  of  your  appreciation,  still  the  glory 
will  be  yours  of  having  urged  me  to  the  en 
deavor.  You  are  the  height  and  I  am  the 
depth;  you  are  the  star  shining  in  the  Infinite 
and  I  the  poor  vainly  aspiring  worm  on  the 
earth  below :  yet  in  some  fortunate  hour  I  may 
be  lifted  to  you. 

For  we  do  not  make  the  supreme  effort  of 
our  souls  for  the  many,  but  for  the  few, — nay, 
oftenest  of  all,  for  the  One !  When  I  am  at 
my  best,  you  know  well  that  I  am  wrriting  for 
you  alone;  when  I  am  at  my  worst,  it  is  because 
305 


306  AN  ATTIC  DREAMER 

I  can  not  rise  to  the  thought  of  you.  Even 
so  my  soul  is  often  silent  for  days,  giving  me 
no  message  from  the  Infinite,  no  hint  of  its 
kinship  to  the  stars,  no  whisper  of  the  life  it 
led  before  this  life  and  the  life  it  shall  lead 
after  this.  I  sometimes  think  you  are  my  soul! 
But  help  me — help  me  always,  no  matter 
how  often  and  how  far  I  may  fall  below  your 
hope  of  me.  Still  reach  me  your  kind  hand 
which  has  power  to  save  me  from  the  last  gulf; 
still  say  those  words  of  grace  and  cheer  for 
which  I  hunger  the  more,  the  more  that  I  feel 
my  unworthiness.  I  will  read  them  over  and 
over  until  I  make  myself  believe  that  I  really 
deserve  them.  Some  day,  be  sure,  I  will  utterly 
free  myself  from  my  baser  self  and  live  only 
for  you.  I  will  be  your  Sir  Galahad,  and  my 
strength  of  soul  shall  be  as  the  strength  of  ten. 
I  will  dedicate  every  thought  to  you  and  I  will 
write  for  you  alone — then  must  I  at  last  be 
worthy  of  your  praise  in  which  the  few  or  the 
many  will  have  no  part.  I  will  no  longer  give 
out  my  truth  to  hire,  or  shame  the  Divinity  in 
my  breast,  or  care  only  to  move  the  laughter 
of  the  crowd.  I  will  write  a  book  only  for  you, 
and  you  shall  be  here,  as  now,  looking  over  my 
shoulder  as  I  write,  and  giving  me  fresh  inspi- 


IDEAL  307 

ration  whenever  my  thought  fails.  Neither 
the  few  nor  the  many  shall  see  this  book — it 
will  be  for  you  and  me  alone.  We  shall  love 
it  greatly  for  having  written  it  together  and 
because  it  will  be  forever  sacred  to  us  two.  I 
have  already  thought  of  a  title  for  this  book 
— we  shall  call  it  the  "Story  of  a  Man  who 
Lost  but  afterward  Found  his  Soul". 

Turn  now  your  dear  face  to  the  light — for 
my  lamp  wanes  and  I  have  sat  far  into  the 
night — that  I  may  see  the  look  of  praise  upon 
it  that  has  cheered  so  many  a  task  of  mine; 
that  I  may  renew  my  worn  spirit  in  the  eternal 
peace  of  those  calm  eyes. 

Tell  me, — oh,  tell  me  the  truth,  I  beseech 
you, — are  you  my  soul! 


XXX 

LITTLE  MOTHER 

IN  almost  every  large  family  there  is  one 
devoted  girl  who  stands  ready  to  take  the 
mother's  place  and  to  whom  the  younger 
ones  turn  with  a  sure  trust  and  affection.     Of 
all  the  household  virtues — the  sacred  incom 
municable  things  of  hearth  and  home — I  know 
of  nothing  quite  so  beautiful  as  this. 

All  deep  and  genuine  love  is  of  the  essence 
of  sacrifice.  Who  has  not  suffered  the  martyr 
dom  of  the  heart  has  never  known  love.  But 
how  touching  is  this  abnegation,  this  heroism 
that  springs  from  we  know  not  what  depths  of 
human  nature,  when  seen  in  one  whose  eyes 
still  look  at  you  with  the  candid  innocence  of 
childhood!  Oh,  men  and  women,  tell  me  not 
that  Heaven  itself  can  show  a  lovelier 
thing.  .  .  . 

And  musing  on  it,  there  rises  before  me  a 
little  face  and  figure,  most  dear  from  all  the 

woven  ties  of  race  and  blood  and  memory; — a 

308 


LITTLE  MOTHER  309 

little  face  that  you  might  deem  plain  enough, 
but  which  is  beautiful  to  me  with  its  quiet  brow 
and  steady,  thoughtful  eyes  still  misted  with 
the  hopes  and  dreams  of  youth. 

She  puts  a  small  hand  in  mine  and  leads  me 
back  over  the  years — years  of  which,  God 
knows,  I  took  but  little  heed  in  their  passage. 
And  I  see  her  always  the  same  yet  always 
younger,  hushing  to  sleep  other  little  faces 
strangely  like  hers,  mothering  one  tot  after  an 
other,  lavishing  upon  them  the  artless  love  and 
praise  she  should  have  given  her  dolls — alas, 
these  were  the  only  dolls  she  ever  really  knew; 
coaxing  them  over  the  first  pitfalls  of  infancy, 
caring  for  them  with  a  pitiably  premature  wis 
dom — aye,  and  sometimes  bravely  battling  for 
them  with  the  urchins  of  the  street,  forgetting 
her  tears  until  the  peril  was  past. 

I  see  resting  his  pale  cheek  on  her  young 
breast — a  child  nursing  a  child! — one  that  too 
soon  grew  weary  and  left  us.  But  her  arms 
are  empty  only  a  moment,  for  even  as  I  look, 
another  babe  is  there.  And  I  wonder,  with  a 
painful  sense  of  ingratitude,  that  I  should 
never  have  reckoned  this  treasure  at  its  worth; 
that  I  should  have  been  blind  to  so  much  that 
was  beyond  price  in  the  little  humble  world 


310          AN  ATTIC  DREAMER 

about  me;  that  there  was  a  heavy  debt  against 
me  on  behalf  of  this  child  which  I  could  never 
repay. 

Something  of  this  I  try  to  say  to  her  in 
stumbling  words,  nor  caring  to  keep  back  the 
tears.  But  she  hushes  me  with  a  touch  on  the 
cheek  and  an  intensity  of  the  quiet  look  habit 
ual  with  her.  And  now  she  leads  me  back 
through  the  long  nursery  of  years;  past  little 
beds  where  rosy  health  slumbered,  clasping  its 
toys,  or  pale  sickness  lay  feverishly  awake; 
past  all  the  scenes  wherein  her  brave  young 
heart  was  schooled  and  she  became  a  woman 
whilst  yet  a  child;  past  the  lightly  regretted 
dolls  and  her  childish  air-castles  always 
tumbled  topsy-turvy  by  those  tiny  baby  hands 
— back  into  the  present  where,  almost  a  young 
woman  now,  she  smiles  joyously  at  me,  holding 
up  the  youngest  in  her  arms !  .  .  . 

Oh  little  mother,  blessed  be  you  and  all  your 
sisters  the  wide  earth  over  that  worthily  bear 
the  name!  Your  tears  are  reckoned  in 
Heaven,  where  the  Innocents  sing  ever  your 
praise;  and  when  you  die,  having  known  only 
the  maternity  of  the  heart,  God  calls  you  unto 
Him,  very  near  the  Throne ! 


XXXI 

LOVE 

LOVE  is  for  the  loving. 
There  is  but  one  well  in  the  world 
that    grows    ever    the    richer    and 
sweeter  and  more  plenteous  by  giving. 

That  well  is  the  human  heart  and  its  living 
waters  are  those  of  love. 

Yet  herein  is  the  wonder  of  it,  that  the  man 
who  thinks  he  hath  need  of  it  but  seldom  shall 
not  at  his  desire  get  more  than  a  scanty 
draught,  and  the  sweet  water  shall  turn  bitter 
in  his  mouth. 

Ye  have  heard  it  said,  to  him  that  hath  shall 
be  given:  this  is  the  meaning  thereof. 

Spend  yourself  in  loving  that  you  may  be 
often  athirst  for  the  life-giving  water.  But 
count  not  to  drink  unto  refreshing  unless  you 
come  weary  and  blessed  from  the  service  of 
love.  Then,  ah  then,  the  sweetness  of  the 
draught!  .  .  . 

WE  are  constantly  seeking  our  own  in  dark- 
3" 


312  AN  ATTIC  DREAMER 

ness  and  in  light,  awake  or  adream;  reaching 
out  our  longing  arms  toward  the  Infinite;  send 
ing  forth  our  filaments  of  thought;  summoning 
the  One  who  shall  know  and  feel,  with  a  pas 
sion  of  desire;  praying  for  that  rare  response 
which  crowns  the  chief  expectancy  of  life.  Not 
always  do  our  arms  fall  empty;  not  always  do 
our  thoughts  return  to  mock  our  vain  quest; 
not  always  are  our  prayers  unanswered  and 
our  hearts  left  void  and  cold. 

I  hold  this  to  be  of  the  true  divinity  of  life, 
this  kinship  of  the  spirit  which  will  leave  no 
man  or  woman  at  rest,  but  ever  insists  upon 
working  out  its  exigent  yet  benign  destiny; 
forming  those  sweet  and  consoling  relations 
which  are  our  best  joy  here  and  may  be  our 
eternal  satisfaction. 

For  the  expectancy  of  love  and  sympathy — 
that  is  to  say,  understanding — is  one  that  never 
dies  in  the  human  heart.  I  may  be  sad,  or  dull, 
or  cold,  or  out  of  touch  with  reality;  I  may 
persuade  myself  that  there  is  no  longer  any 
pith  in  my  mystery;  that  the  years  have  left  me 
bankrupt  in  the  essential  stuff  of  life;  that 
there  is  no  remaining  use  for  me  under  the  sun. 
But  let  my  heart  be  apprised,  in  the  faintest 
whisper,  of  the  advent  or  imminence  of  a  new 


LOVE  313 

friend,  and  lo !  the  world  is  fresh-made,  the 
heavens  constellated  with  hope  and  joy  and 
wonder  as  on  the  first  day. 

Life  is  truly  measured  only  by  such  love  or 
expectancy;  when  that  fails  it  is  the  same  story 
for  king  and  beggar. 

Love  is  the  summoner,  love  is  the  seeker, 
love  the  expectancy,  and  love  the  fulfilment. 
Blessed  be  Love ! 

I  SPOKE  some  harsh  words  to  my  dear  love, 
thinking  myself  in  the  right  and  forgetting  the 
Law  of  Kindness.  Then  as  I  was  turning  away 
in  anger,  the  sight  of  her  pale  face,  with  its 
mute  reproach,  smote  me  to  the  heart.  I  took 
her  in  my  arms  and  we  wept  the  most  precious 
tears  together.  O  divine  moment,  in  that  sa 
cred  hush,  with  her  heart  beating  against  mine, 
I  seemed  to  be  conscious  of  angels  listening. 

THOSE  who  are  not  in  spiritual  accord  and 
understanding  with  us — that  is  to  say,  who  do 
not  truly  love  us — are  as  if  they  were  not  pres 
ent  in  our  lives,  save  for  the  unhappiness  of  an 
enforced  relation  with  them.  Twenty  years' 
breathing  the  same  air,  living  in  the  same 
house,  even  going  through  the  physical  forms 


314  AN  ATTIC  DREAMER 

of  the  closest  union,  will  not  change  the  con 
dition.  At  the  end  of  that  long  period  we  are, 
by  the  Law  of  Spirit,  as  hopelessly  separate,  as 
mutually  repellent  as  ever. 

LOVE  is  akin  to  hate — how  trite  that  is  and 
how  true !  I  sometimes  wonder  is  either 
quality  to  be  found  unmixed  with  the  other? 
Can  we  have  love  without  hate  or  hate  without 
love?  The  only  glimpse  of  hatred  I  have  ever 
had  that  quite  appalled  me  was  from  one  who 
loved  me  very  much.  Ah,  happy  they  who 
neither  love  nor  hate ! 

IN  love  we  must  bleed  and  the  wounds  we 
receive  are  very  cruel.  Still  it  seems  we  can 
never  have  enough  of  them,  for  love  has  power 
to  heal  the  wounds  which  it  inflicts — and  so  we 
go  on  loving  and  bleeding  to  the  end. 

THERE  is  one  thing  of  which  I  have  never 
had  my  fill  and  for  which  my  soul  hungers  al 
ways — love !  And  always  I  am  promising  my 
self  that  one  day  I  shall  be  satisfied. 

WHEN  I  was  younger  there  was  nothing  for 
me  but  a  woman  between  the  heavens  and  the 
earth.  Now  I  perceive  there  are  a  few  other 
things.  Yet  am  I  not  old,  as  age  is  counted. 


LOVE  315 

THE  only  man  who  has  a  right  to  despair  of 
the  world  is  he  who  neither  loves  nor  is  loved. 

THERE  is  but  one  thing  more  interesting 
than  a  woman's  love — her  hate. 

I  HATE  the  woman  who  is  not  a  mystery  to 
herself  as  well  as  to  me. 

LOVE  is  a  combat  and  friendship  a  duel. 
Strife  is  the  law  of  existence. 

LOVE  is  the  primum  mobile — the  great  mo 
tive  which  produces  the  miracles  of  genius  and 
all  that  we  recognize  as  the  work  of  higher 
powers.  Happy  the  artist  whom  it  blesses  and 
fructifies  to  the  end! 

I  SHOULD  never  be  weary  of  learning  of 
women.  I  have  long  since  tired  learning  of 
men. 

LOOK  back  now  over  the  long  way  and  see 
if  it  be  not  love  that  has  led  you  so  far! 

LOVE  is  the  one  dream  that  does  not  forsake 
us  as  we  descend  into  the  Valley,  but  is  potent 
to  bring  joy  or  misery  to  the  last. 

To  find  the  One  who  could  love  and  feel  and 
understand — this  is  the  dream  of  many  who  yet 
remain  faithful  to  their  bonds. 


316          AN  ATTIC  DREAMER 

WHAT  is  more  terrible  than  the  face  of  one 
who  once  loved  and  now  hates  you,  seen  in  a 
dream ! 

How  great  the  artist  who  should  know 
woman  to  the  soul,  without  giving  up  his  free 
dom  to  her! 

THIS  earth,  what  is  it  but  a  vast  cemetery, 
with  the  Rose  of  love  and  the  Immortelle  of 
remembrance ! 


XXXII 

EPIGRAMS  AND  APHORISMS 

THE  wise  gods,  when  they  contrived 
this  tragic  comedy  of  life  which  we 
have  been  such  a  weary  time  a-play- 
ing,  mixed  up  a  little  humor  with  the  serious 
business.  He  alone  plays  his  part  well  who 
finds  the  jest — the  lath  for  the  sword,  the  mask 
of  Harlequin  for  the  frozen  face  of  Medusa. 
Those  who  have  best  solved  the  exquisite 
humor  of  the  gods  are  called  great  by  the  gen 
eral  voice  of  mankind,  and  some  dozen  of  them 
have  lived  since  the  world,  or  the  play,  began. 
Unlike  these  supremely  gifted  players,  the  vast 
majority  of  men  get  only  the  merest  inkling 
of  the  gods'  merry  intent,  but  it  suffices  to  save 
their  lives  from  utter  misery.  Some  devote 
themselves  to  solving  the  riddle  with  terrible 
seriousness,  and  the  laughing  god  underneath 
always  escapes  them,  leaving  them  empty- 
handed  and  ever  the  more  tragically  serious. 
These — and  they  are  no  small  number — die  in 
317 


3i8          AN  ATTIC  DREAMER 

madhouses  or  religion,  or  write  books  which 
increase  the  sorrow  of  the  world:  whatever 
their  fate,  life  remains  for  them  a  tragedy  to 
the  end. 

THERE  came  a  Soul  before  the  Judgment 
seat.  And  God  said:  Need  there  is  none  that 
We  judge  this  man,  for  he  hath  given  all  his 
days  to  Evil;  from  his  childhood  he  hath  turned 
his  back  upon  the  City  of  Peace  and  none  hath 
ever  cleaved  more  to  the  sweetness  of  sin.  Let 
him  pronounce  his  own  judgment  and  avow 
that  he  hath  deserved  the  Evil  Place. 

Then  the  Soul  cried  out:  It  is  true  I  have 
merited  Hell  by  my  iniquity,  but  this  is  not  Thy 
justice. 

And  God  said:  What  more  canst  thou  ask, 
seeing  that  thou  hast  wrought  judgment  against 
thyself? 

Then  the  Soul  made  answer :  Send  me  to 
Heaven  for  the  good  I  would  have  done  1 

LIFE  is  never  simple  to  the  divining  spirit — 
every  moment  of  the  common  day  is  charged 
with  mystery  and  revelation. 

ALL  the  great  humorists  are  sad, — Cer 
vantes,  Moliere,  Swift,  Sterne,  Heine,  Richter, 


EPIGRAMS  AND  APHORISMS  319 

Balzac,  Dickens, — for  sadness  is  the  penalty 
which  Nature  has  annexed  to  that  deep-search 
ing  knowledge  of  life  we  call  humor.  Hence 
is  the  tragedy  of  literature :  if  the  man  did  not 
weep  sometimes,  we  would  cease  to  laugh  at 
his  jests; — in  the  end  he  weeps  too  much,  and 
then  we  talk  of  the  failure  of  his  art! 

I  KNOW  not  why  I  sit  under  this  lamp  and 
write  these  lines — doubtless  it  has  all  been  writ 
ten  before  times  out  of  mind.  Could  it  be  pos 
sible  that  I  should  have  a  single  thought  that 
never  was  vouchsafed  to  another?  Or  a  single 
expression  that  has  not  at  some  time  been 
turned  by  another  pen?  No,  and  again,  No. 
What  then  is  to  do?  Why  nothing — but  to 
write,  and  to  keep  on  writing! 

IT  seems  to  be  a  fixed  belief  and  an  incurable 
superstition  of  the  mediocre  mind  that  great 
mental  power  is  always  accompanied  by  some 
moral  handicap  or  abnormality.  Hence  the  ob 
scene  legends  spawned  of  the  vulgar  imagina 
tion,  which  are  attached  to  so  many  famous 
and  illustrious  names.  It  is  the  toad's  answer 
to  the  swan — the  eternal  penalty  which  medi 
ocrity  exacts  of  genius. 

Few  of   a   truth   are   the  great   artists   and 


320          AN  ATTIC  DREAMER 

poets  who  have  escaped  this  penalty;  nay,  we 
are  loth  to  grant  them  the  highest  merit  should 
they  lack  the  stigma  of  slander.  Glory  and 
Golgotha  refuse  to  be  separated! 

POSTERITY  is  the  hectic  dream  of  the  weak 
— it  does  not  break  the  calm  slumber  of  the 
strong.  The  man  who  works  with  his  whole 
soul  in  the  present,  who  possesses  and  is  pos 
sessed  by  the  time  that  has  been  allotted  him 
out  of  all  eternity, — that  man  may  miss  the 
prize  as  well  as  another.  But  he  is  headed  the 
right  way  to  capture  the  award  of  posterity. 

SHAKESPEARE  erred  in  assigning  only  seven 
ages  to  man — there  are  at  least  seventy.  Often 
we  live  through  several  in  a  single  day — it  all 
depends  upon  the  kind  of  experience. 

WHY  do  we  write  for  the  world  the  things 
we  would  not  say  to  the  individual?  Why  do 
we  send  on  every  wandering  wind  the  secrets 
we  would  not  whisper  in  the  ear  of  our  chosen 
friend? 

REMEMBER  that  the  true  struggle  of  life  is 
not  to  achieve  what  the  world  calls  success,  but 
to  hold  that  Essential  Self  inviolate  which  was 
given  you  to  mark  your  identity  from  all  other 


EPIGRAMS  AND  APHORISMS  321 

souls.  Against  this  precious  possession — this 
Veriest  You — all  winds  blow,  all  storms  rage, 
all  malign  powers  contend.  As  you  hold  to 
this  or  suffer  it  to  be  marred  or  taken  from  you, 
so  shall  be  your  victory  or  defeat. 

O  MEMORY!  thou  leadest  me  back  over  the 
years  and  showest  me  many  a  place  where  once 
I  would  have  lingered  forever,  but  now  thou 
canst  not  show  me  one  of  all  where  I  would 
tarry  again;  my  Soul  knoweth  that  not  a  single 
step  can  be  retraced,  and  that  she  is  of  the 
Infinite  to  be. 

THE  mystery  of  the  Hereafter  is  very  great 
indeed,  but  we  may  take  courage  in  reflecting 
that  with  each  day  we  leave  some  of  it  behind 
us. 

MEN  are  always  talking  about  truth,  but 
there  is  really  so  little  of  it  in  common  use  that 
it  might  be  classed  with  radium.  Perhaps  we 
should  not  know  it  if  we  saw  it,  for  our  experi 
ence  deals  almost  wholly  with  substitutes. 

IN  making  up  the  character  of  God,  the  old 
theologians  failed  to  mention  that  He  is  of  an 
infinite  cheerfulness.  The  omission  has  cost 
the  world  much  tribulation. 


322          AN  ATTIC  DREAMER 

To  preserve  the  freedom  of  your  mind  and 
the  whiteness  of  your  soul — that  is  to  lead  the 
life  ideal. 

BEGINNING  as  children,  we  walk  away  from 
God,  and  as  old  men  we  strive  to  totter  back 
again. 

GRIEVE  not  that  you  desire  always  and 
vainly — life  without  desire  is  very  near  unto 
death. 

NATURE  has  no  sorrows — perhaps  that  is 
why  she  is  immortal. 

NOT  a  single  religion  in  the  world  credits 
God  with  a  sense  of  humor.  Perhaps  this  only 
proves  how  great  a  humorist  he  is  1 

AMONG  persons  whose  lives  touch  at  every 
point,  there  is  often  no  communion  of  the  soul 
for  months  and  years.  Were  we  to  live  only 
by  the  active  life  of  the  soul,  our  term  would 
be  as  brief  as  that  of  the  ephemera. 

MEN  are  damned  not  for  what  they  believe 
but  for  what  they  make-believe. 

I  AM  not  the  man  I  was  ten  years  ago.  I 
should  not  know  the  boy  I  was  were  I  to  meet 


EPIGRAMS  AND  APHORISMS  323 

him  in  the  street.     Time  is  ever  stealing  our 
outworn  wardrobes  of  the  flesh  and  spirit. 

THE  strongest  writer  smiles  at  the  praise  of 
his  strength — he  alone  knows  how  weak  he 
can  be. 

THE  very  meanest  man  I  know  believes  for 
sure  that  God  is  made  in  his  particular  image 
and  likeness. 


XXXIII 

SCRIP  FOR  YOUR  PILGRIMAGE 

CULTIVATE  joy  in  your  life  and  in 
your   work.      For   indeed  when   you 
think  of  it,  over-seriousness  is  the  bane 
of  art  as  of  life.     Nothing  in  art  was  ever 
done  well  that  was  not  a  joy  in  its  conception. 
Travail  the  artist  must,  but  in  gladness.    So  of 
the  perfect  lyrist,  we  read  that  his  song  is  a 
rapture  poured  forth  from  a  heart  that  can 
never  grow  old. 

ALEXANDRE  DUMAS,  the  greatest  master  of 
narrative  fiction  that  has  ever  lived,  toiled  all 
day  and  every  day,  laughing  like  Gargantua  at 
the  birth  of  his  son;  and  sometimes  weeping, 
too,  over  his  own  pathos.  Ah,  what  would  not 
one  have  given  for  the  privilege  of  climbing 
the  stairs  stealthily  to  watch  the  merry  giant 
at  his  task!  Do  you  wonder  that  this  rejoic 
ing  faculty  furnished  for  many  years  the  chief 
entertainment  of  Europe?  I  should  not  care 
324 


SCRIP  FOR  YOUR  PILGRIMAGE  325 

much  for  a  writer  incapable  of  being  moved  as 
Dumas  was  moved. 

HAPPY  the  man  who  is  wise  enough  to  say, 
"Nay,  Nay,"  and  sidestep  the  Sphinx. 

WHEN  I  come  to  die,  I  know  my  keenest 
regret  will  be  that  I  suffered  myself  to  be  an 
noyed  by  a  lot  of  small  people  and  picayune 
worries,  wasting  God's  good  time  with  both. 

MANY  a  man  pretending  to  swallow  the  ass 
of  Balaam  of  Beor  has  his  way  through  life 
made  easy  for  him.  When  will  Stupidity  cease 
to  lay  cushions  for  the  feet  of  Hypocrisy? 

THE  wounds  of  self  bleed  always  and  will 
not  be  forgiven. 

I  NEED  not  write  to  my  dear  friend,  for  my 
heart  talks  to  him  every  day  over  the  miles. 
In  this  way,  too,  I  tell  him  only  the  things  I 
wish  to  tell  him,  and  so  have  nothing  to  change 
or  recall  after  the  letter  is  sealed  and  sent.  I 
was  not  always  so  wise. 

THE  better  is  enemy  of  the  good,  said  Will 
iam  Morris.  Do  your  stint  to-day  and  let  it 
go  for  what  it  is  worth.  All  days  are  ranked 
equal  in  God's  fair  time.  You  can  not  steal 


326          AN  ATTIC  DREAMER 

from  to-day  to  give  unto  to-morrow,  nor  play 
at  loaded  dice  with  the  Fates. 

To  move  forward  constantly  in  a  straight 
line,  without  capitulation  or  compromise,  has 
never  been  granted  to  any  man  born  of  woman. 
The  white  flags  of  truce  flutter  from  every 
citadel. 

IF  your  friend  were  to  show  you  his  whole 
mind,  you  could  not  breathe  the  same  air  with 
him.  Never  forget  that  the  closest  friendship 
is  only  a  truce. 

SHOW  your  strength  to  the  world,  but  be 
ware  how  you  betray  your  weakness,  even  to 
your  dearest  friend. 

YOUR  purpose — your  purpose  ! — never  for 
get  that.  I  read  an  immense  novel  of  Balzac's 
lately,  and  the  one  thing  that  has  remained 
with  me  from  it  is  this:  "Can  you  go  to  sleep 
every  night  with  one  fixed  purpose  in  mind  and 
strengthen  in  it  from  day  to  day?"  That  is 
the  question  which  every  man  must  put  to  him 
self,  and  as  he  shall  answer  it,  so  shall  be  his 
success  or  failure. 

THE  Talmud  says:  "There  are  three  whose 
life  is  no  life, — the  Sympathetic  man,  the  Iras- 


SCRIP  FOR  YOUR  PILGRIMAGE  327 

cible,  and  the  Melancholy".     What  chance  for 
the  unfortunate  who  is  all  three  in  one? 

THE  most  obscure  genius  has  consolations 
that  outweigh  the  blazon  of  triumphant 
mediocrity. 

IF  it  were  not  for  this  haunting  distrust  of 
v      self,  this  recurrent  sinking  of  the  heart,  how 
easy  the  task  would  be ! 

CHOOSE  with  fear  and  trembling  the  hand 
from  which  you  shall  accept  benefits. 

A  MAN  may  boast  that  he  can  judge  himself 
as  harshly  as  another,  but  he  makes  no  mistake 
in  passing  sentence. 

I  AM  thankful  for  your  praise  and  I  bow  the 
neck  to  your  censure;  but  I  have  that  within 
which  cheers  more  than  the  one  and  chastens 
more  than  the  other. 

THERE  is  hardly  anything  in  the  world  you 
may  not  have  if  you  can  only  make  people  be 
lieve  that  you  accept  them  at  their  own  valua 
tion. 

Do  not  fear  the  man  who  is  quick  to  show 
his  anger: — the  deadliest  antipathies  I  have 


328          AN  ATTIC  DREAMER 

ever  known  were  hidden  in  a  smiling  eye  and  a 
cordial  hand-clasp. 

THE  conspiracy  of  authority,  the  conspiracy 
of  wealth,  the  conspiracy  of  superstition  and 
ignorance, — these  are  the  forces  that  rule  the 
world. 

SANE  persons  will  not  expect  to  find  absolute 
perfection  in  Heaven — there  as  here  the  charm 
of  a  little  discontent,  the  satisfaction  of  turn 
ing  up  a  small  grievance,  will  not  be  denied  us. 

THE  vice  of  the  Pharisee  is  in  believing  that 
he  is  not  like  unto  other  men.  The  virtue  of  a 
man  who  knows  himself  a  sinner  is  in  believing 
that  other  men  are  not  like  unto  himself. 

THAT  which  was  lately  power  is  now  impo 
tence,  but  wait!  it  will  soon  be  power  again. 

IT  is  something  to  have  lived  for  the  things 
of  the  mind,  even  though  we  have  missed  what 
the  world  calls  wealth  or  success — those  at 
least  shall  not  be  taken  from  us. 

REVISE  and  revise  and  revise — the  best 
thought  will  still  come  after  the  printer  has 
snatched  away  the  copy. 


SCRIP  FOR  YOUR  PILGRIMAGE  329 

BALZAC  laid  the  world  under  the  greatest 
obligation  of  any  modern  man  of  letters,  and 
was  driven  into  an  untimely  grave  by  the 
spectre  of  debt.  The  highest  service  is  always 
martyrdom. 

A  LEARNED  young  German  philosopher,  Dr. 
Otto  Weininger,  pronounced  the  most  acute 
mind  since  Kant,  not  long  ago  solved  the  great 
problem  of  sex  and  then  killed  himself.  What 
else  was  there  for  him  to  do? 

EVERY  little  while  it  is  announced  that  some 
scientist  has  pinned  down  the  secret  of  life,  but 
always  the  learned  man  has  fooled  himself. 
God  will  not  be  put  into  a  chemical  formula. 

THOU  art  eager  to  be  in  company  and  de- 
lightest  in  the  conversation  of  thy  friends,  yet 
thou  hast  a  better  friend  than  any  of  these  who 
constantly  solicit  thee  and  whom  thou  wilt  sel 
dom  hear — thy  soul! 


XXXIV 

SONG  OF  THE  RAIN 

LONG  time  I  lay  in  my  bed  listening  to 
the  rain. 

In  the  hushed  quiet  of  night,  in  the 
solemn  darkness,  my  heart  ceased  its  beatings 
to  listen.  There  was  naught  in  the  world  but 
my  heart  and  the  rain. 

My  soul  awoke  at  the  song  of  the  rain, 
drenching  through  the  trees,  pattering  on  the 
roof,  filling  my  chamber  with  coolness  and  the 
sense  of  a  mystic  presence.  My  soul  awoke 
and  deemed  that  it  was  the  pause  before  the 
End. 

Long  I  lay  still  in  the  darkness,  hearing  the 
song  of  the  rain;  feeling  upon  me  and  through 
out  me  the  balm  and  blessing  of  the  rain;  tell 
ing  myself  that  if  this  were  the  End,  it  could 
not  better  be.  My  soul  was  all  attention,  eager 
to  catch  the  word  of  its  fate,  my  heart  ceased 
its  throbbing  to  listen — there  was  naught  in  the 
world  but  the  rain  and  my  heart. 
330 


SONG  OF  THE  RAIN  331 

What  was  the  burden  of  the  song  of  the 
rain  that  I  heard  as  I  lay  still  in  my  bed,  wrapt 
in  the  solemn  darkness,  feeling  as  I  shall  feel 
in  the  pause  before  the  End?  What  was  the 
burden  of  the  song  of  the  rain  which  my  soul 
awoke  to  hear  and  for  which  my  heart  stopped 
its  beating? 

Peace  was  the  burden  of  the  song  of  the  rain 
that  I  heard  in  the  deep  of  night  when  my  soul 
thrilled  like  a  wind-harp  in  the  breath  of  God. 
Peace  was  the  burden  of  the  song  of  the  rain. 

Now  have  I  put  away  all  strife  and  anger 
and  unrest  since  there  came  this  wondrous  mes 
sage  of  the  rain,  the  night  and  the  silence. 
Now  do  I  bear  a  quiet  heart  since  my  soul 
trembled  like  a  wind-harp  in  the  breath  of  God. 

Peace  for  all  the  days  that  yet  are  mine 
when  often  I  shall  lie  awake  in  the  night 
silence,  listening  to  the  song  of  the  rain. 

Peace  forevermore  when  my  soul  shall  be 
drawn  into  the  breath  of  God  and  my  body 
mingled  at  last  with  the  balm  and  blessing  of 
the  rain. 

Peace  forevermore ! 


L'ENfOI 

NOTHING  is  easier  than  to  win  the 
favors  of  Our  Lady  of  Art.  You 
have  only  to  serve  her  with  all  your 
heart,  and  all  your  soul,  and,  especially,  all 
your  time — she  is  a  jealous  mistress,  as  hath 
been  said,  and  slow  to  forgive  the  neglect  of 
a  day  or  even  an  hour.  You  must  forego  many 
things  that  make  for  what  the  world  calls  for 
tune  and  success.  You  shall  woo  the  shadow 
for  your  portion  and  leave  to  others  the  sub 
stance.  And  ever  you  shall  toil  with  unwearied 
labor,  while  Age  steals  upon  you  and  the  gay 
procession  of  Youth  passes  by  in  mockery.  The 
whitening  hair,  the  flagging  pulse,  the  stiffen 
ing  limb,  the  broken  slumber,  the  lamentable 
awakening — these  things  shall  not  trouble  your 
perfect  faith,  for  they  are  dear  to  Our  Lady. 
It  is  not  enough  that  you  be  patient — you  must 
become  patience  itself,  though  each  returning 
sun  bring  you  the  same  tale  of  futility  and  dis 
appointment.  This  shall  sustain  you,  that 
332 


L'ENVOI  333 

though  Our  Lady  give  no  sign — not  a  flutter 
of  the  eyelids,  not  the  hint  of  a  smile  at  the 
corners  of  the  mouth — still  she  sees  and  ap 
praises  your  devotion.  More  than  this  you 
shall  not  ask  if  you  be  of  the  true  elect.  Yes, 
one  thing  more  .  .  .  just  before  you  die  she 
may  give  you  her  hand  to  kiss ! 

And  this  is  all?  No:  some  years  after  you 
are  silent,  with  your  hope  and  your  despair,  a 
little  honor  may  be  paid  the  dead  man  that  was 
ever  denied  the  living;  and  a  few  people  may 
carelessly  turn  the  pages  of  the  Book  for  which 
in  very  truth  you  lived  and  died. 

AD  MAJORAM  DEI  GLORIAM 


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